Canberra's biggest music festival will not provide a testing service for illicit drugs after insurers backed out just days before the event.
Groovin the Moo, to be held this Sunday, was the first event in Australia to provide free testing of pills to festival-goers.
Both organisers and the ACT government support the controversial service, which allows people to check whether their drugs contain dangerous substances without exposing themselves to law enforcement.
However, Pill Testing Australia, which carries out the checks, says it could not lock in public liability insurance for this weekend.
The organisation previously provided testing at the 2018 and 2019 Canberra festivals.
Its spokesman, Gino Vambuca, said he was devastated to receive the news just days before the event.
Mr Vambuca said multiple private insurance brokers had demanded extra information and imposed unfeasible deadlines.
"They've declined at the last minute to proceed with insuring us, and requiring a heap of other information that was impossible to provide them with at such short notice, effectively terminating our service."
He said that, since the pandemic began, insurers regarded live events as higher risk, which had an flow-on effects for health services like his.
Decision casts doubt on pill-testing's future
Mr Vambuca said other harm-prevention services would likely face similar insurance problems in future.
"This is a real problem over the horizon: any service that engages with people who use drugs, even though they're reducing harm or treating them, is going to find insurance increasingly difficult to obtain, and that's going to be problematic," he said.
The New South Wales and federal governments both oppose pill-testing, despite inquiries recommending it as a way to reduce drug-related deaths.
The federal government has banned the service at another Canberra music festival, Spilt Milk, which is held near the city on Commonwealth land.
But while Groovin the Moo has ACT government backing to test pills, Mr Vambuca said insurance brokers were now effectively deciding on the service's future.
In a statement, a spokeswoman from the Insurance Council of Australia said the "risk appetite for insurers" was currently "low".
"Right now, insurance globally is in what is known as a "hard market", which means the risk appetite for insurers is low," she said.
"Activities of these sorts, which are inherently risky, may be less appealing to insurers in this environment."
Thousands of people are expected at this weekend's Groovin the Moo, which is returning after a two-year pandemic hiatus.
Pill Testing Australia said it had prepared for the event by rostering more than 40 volunteer staff, including health professionals.
