Two young men are dead after suspected drug overdoses at music festivals in Sydney on Saturday.
A 26-year-old man died after going to the Knockout music festival at Sydney Olympic Park on Saturday evening.
Police at the Listen Out festival at Centennial Park yesterday.Credit: Dean Sewell
Paramedics were called to Sydney Olympic Park to treat the man just before 1am on Sunday morning. He was taken to Concord Hospital, where he died.
In a separate incident, a 21-year-old man died after attending the Listen Out festival at Centennial Park.
Police said he was treated by paramedics at a hotel on George Street before they took him to St Vincent’s Hospital. Police were called to the hospital at 1am after he died.
More than 80,000 music fans attended the two festivals and the Heaps Gay festival in Marrickville on Saturday.
The $10.8 million inquiry in 2018 recommended removing drug dogs but the government has not acted on those recommendations.Credit: Dean Sewell
Police charged more than 70 people yesterday with drug offences.
At the Listen Out festival at Centennial Park, police caught 85 people with drugs. Five men and three women were charged with supplying drugs. Two men were caught with 63 MDMA capsules and cocaine.
At the Knockout festival, 27 people were charged with drug possession and two men and two women were charged with drug supply.
Earlier this year, NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson urged her Labor colleagues to “join the nationwide movement” toward pill testing. Her intervention prompted Premier Chris Minns to warn cabinet colleagues against engaging in a “running commentary” about policy reform in portfolios which weren’t their domain.
The Minns government has promised to hold a drug summit in its first term in office.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Labor has said it will host a drug summit in its first term in office, but health and legal experts believe the summit is unnecessary because the previous government had already spent $10.8 million on an ice inquiry.
The previous government had rejected some of that inquiry’s recommendations which include pill testing, expanding the medically supervised injecting centre in Kings Cross and removing drug detection dogs.
