For some young adults, such as 17-year-old Lara, the government’s tough stance has resonated.
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“I think the message the government is trying to send is that they don’t want people to do it … that’s why they’re taking it away,” she said.
“There’s no point in testing it if you’re going to take it anyway.”
An evaluation of CheQpoint’s drug-checking services found 44 per cent of people surveyed did not use the substance they had tested.
High school graduate Harris said he believed removing the facilities would not prevent people from taking drugs, but would take away potentially life-saving knowledge.
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“Sometimes having enough information can be the difference between taking a pill that’s three-out-of-10 bad, or a pill that is 10-out-of-10 bad,” he said.
For him, the choice felt like a step in the wrong direction. “It’s annoying. Like, why did we not get it, but they did?”
He understood it might not be the case for everyone, but for some young people, the results from pill testing could save lives.
“For an avid drug user, not being able to test [pills] might not be a big deal,” he said.
“But for me or any other 17-year-old kid, if there was something crazy in it like fent [fentanol], I just wouldn’t touch it.”
As Brisbane’s year 12s make the trip down the M1 this weekend, the political debate rages on, but the government has indicated little appetite for budging.
In a statement to this masthead’s questions about his approach, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie accused Labor of “rolling out the welcome mat to drug dealers”.
“As a father of two young adults and a teenager, I want to do everything we can to protect the health and safety of our young people,” he said.
