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MDMA-using NSW MP wants no sniffer dogs

Cate Faehrmann said people were ingesting more than one MDMA pill to enter a festival undetected.

Cate Faehrmann said people were ingesting more than one MDMA pill to enter a festival undetected. Photo: AAP

Sniffer dogs and high-visibility policing at music festivals are making drug-taking youth make riskier choices, a NSW Greens MP says.

Cate Faehrmann, who on Monday admitted she has taken ecstasy or MDMA occasionally since her 20s, has taken aim at the NSW government’s zero-tolerance approach to illicit drug use.

The Greens MP, 48, says policing and sniffer dogs do not stop people from bringing drugs into festivals but have instead led to people taking more than one MDMA pill or cap at once before entering the festival.

“They do this to avoid detection from sniffer dogs,” she wrote in an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald.

“It’s not rocket science, then, to draw the conclusion that sniffer dogs are putting young people’s lives at risk.

“Being honest about illegal drugs also means we would manage their risks in proportion to the risks posed by other drugs.”

The state upper house crossbencher took aim at NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian for saying “there is no such thing as a safe illegal drug”.

“When the millions of Australians – including every third or fourth person between the ages of 20 and 29 who have used cannabis, ecstasy or cocaine over the past 12 months – hear the Premier’s message … they wonder what planet she is living on,” Ms Faehrmann said.

Meanwhile, Port Phillip Council in Melbourne, which includes the popular St Kilda entertainment district, has called on the Victorian government to allow and help fund drug testing at participating venues.

The call follows a string of suspected overdose deaths at Australian music festivals.

“Two years ago the Port Phillip Council said that we supported the use of a trial. Since then there’s been a bitter harvest of dead bodies around the country,” Mayor Dick Gross told the Nine Network on Monday.

“It’s unacceptable that governments turn their back on this any more and I know that it is revolting to some people that we would aid and abet pill taking.”

-AAP

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