Mental Health Minister Gabrielle Williams did not rule it out on Wednesday morning but said the state has no plans to introduce pill testing.
The coroner Judge John Cain on Wednesday released his findings on the death of a man at Karnival Music Festival in Flemington in March last year. The 26-year-old was seen taking a pill that resembled a Blue Punisher – a pill with the logo from the comic bookPunisher on it and dangerously high concentrations of MDMA.
He was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital with multi-organ failure and brain swelling,and he died four days later.
“It is impossible to know whether,had a drug checking service existed,[the man] would have submitted a sample of an MDMA pill for testing before taking it at Karnival,” Cain said in his findings.
“Notwithstanding this,a drug-checking service would have at least created the opportunity for him to do so,and for him to receive tailored harm reduction information from the drug-checking facility.
“It is likewise impossible to know whether,had[the man] been provided information of this type,he would have changed his drug consumption behaviour;but likewise,in the absence of a drug checking service,this was not a possible outcome.”