OPINION: Last year the Global Commission on Drug Policy reported that the international "war"on drugs has been a complete failure.

The evidence from around the world is clear hard-line drug policies don't reduce the demand or supply of illegal drugs.

Instead these policies put people taking drugs completely in the dark. Their MDMA(ecstasy) might have five doses in one pill.

ROSA WOODS/STUFF

Moralising doesn't change people's behaviour or keep them safe.

Or it might have been padded out with cheaper, more dangerous drugs.

READ MORE:*How Kiwis' drugs are being tested before they do harm* Summer of love tinged with danger as MDMA reaches new peaks at NZ festivals * Call for urgency on 'life saving' drug tests before summer music festival season starts* Drugs tested covertly at a NZ festival: 57 per cent not what partygoers expected

It's all well and good shrugging our shoulders and saying people shouldn't do drugs if they don't want to risk overdosing or being poisoned.But moralising doesn't change people's behaviour or keep them safe.

ROSA WOODS/STUFF

Testing illegal drugs at festivals is worthwhile, say Wendy Allison, Managing Director of KnowYourStuffNZ, and Samuel Andrews, Harm Reduction Project Advisor for the NZ Drug Foundation.

I agree with the commission that we need to move away from prohibition and punishment and reduce the risk of drug users coming to harm.

KnowYourStuffNZ is a not-for-profit social enterprise that works in partnership with the NZ Drug Foundation to set up drug-checking tents at festivals and events.

Funded entirely by donations, the KnowYourStuffNZ volunteers use spectrometers to let people check what's in their drugs before deciding whether to take them.

Importantly, after testing, the volunteers talk to people about the risks of taking whatever it is they've identified.

They also let event medical staff know what drugs they've come across so that the staff have a better chance of dealing with any medical issues that may arise.

This is vital, as KnowYourStuffNZ have found more than 70 different types of substances being sold as the main three or four illegal drugstypes.

The good news is that according to their latest data, almost two thirds of people choose not to take their drugs if it turns out they weren't what they thought they were.

Right now, it's unclear whether festival organisers could be prosecuted for "knowingly" providing drug-checking at their events.

Or they could lose their event insurance for keeping people safer.

That's why the Green Party are calling on Parliament to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 so that drug-checking can be made more widely available.

With the weather warming up and our summer festival season approaching, I hope Parliament gets behind this initiative and drug-checking becomes the norm.

Dr Siouxsie Wiles MNZM is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland and a Deputy Director of Te Pnaha Matatini, a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence.

Follow this link:

When it comes to NZ drugs, better safe than sorry - Stuff.co.nz