A Riverina festival organiser has welcomed the NSW Deputy Coroner calling for pill testing and a change in drug policies following a spate of deaths at music events.
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Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame recommended that the state government "permits and facilitates (a) qualified organisation to run front of house medically supervised pill testing at music festivals in NSW with a pilot date starting the summer of 2019-20".
Ms Grahame also recommended that the government give "full and genuine consideration to ... redefining illicit drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than primarily a law enforcement issue".
Grant Luhrs, a co-organiser of the Stone the Crows Festival, said the Deputy Coroner's support for change was "significant".
"My general philosophy is that prohibition hasn't really worked," he said.
"It's all well and good for people to sit at a distance and say that people shouldn't take drugs but it's being going on for hundreds of years.
"The big stick of prohibition and fines hasn't prevented people from taking drugs, so we have to look at other ways and there's a lot of sense in pill testing and harm minimisation."
Wagga MP Joe McGirr, who has previously expressed support for holding a trial for pill testing, said on Saturday that he was considering the Deputy Coroner's report in depth.
"We don't want people taking drugs and it's pretty clear they're dangerous. That has got to be a solid message and the report actually contains a lot of information about why they are dangerous.
"(The Deputy Coroner) has made a number of recommendations for NSW Health and the guidelines for running festivals and the importance having a stakeholder group that meets regularly to review those guidelines.
"It's pretty clear that the could be improvements to the provision of medical support services and the conditions in which patrons got to festivals."
Dr McGirr said the Deputy Coroner had written a "detailed" review on pill testing, involving the views of a variety of organisations.
"She had made a strong case for a trial for pill testing ... I think it is a very sober and judicial weighing up of the evidence," he said.
Dr McGirr said in relation to the recommendations for law enforcement, he "100 per cent" backed the police.
"I think they are incredibly important and they do a tremendous job. (The Deputy Coroner) has made some suggestions on how policing could be improved and I think that should be looked at," he said.
"There are recommendations in terms of the use of dogs, strip searching, high visibility targeting of patrons and given the evidence that she has presented it does seem to be that should be looked at as from what she has presented, there could be ways of getting better outcomes."
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Ms Grahame's draft recommendations from the inquest into the deaths of six people at NSW music festivals were leaked to the media last month.
After the draft report was leaked, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian maintained her position that she would not allow pill testing.
"I went to the election with this position and I won't be changing it. There is no such thing as a safe illegal drug," Ms Berejiklian said last month.
Mr Luhrs said the festival industry in NSW was still seeing demand from patrons but a government crackdown could make events harder to finance.
"I don't think you are going to stop people from wanting to go to festivals," he said.
"It might have an effect on promoters and people who put money up, make them put their hands up in the air and say 'this is too hard, I'm taking my festival to Victoria or Queensland.
"Certainly something must be done to stop people losing their lives, and whilst I can see that pill testing opens a minefield of complications, it's at least something and even if you save one life you've done OK."