The Hobart City Council has voted to provide in-principle support for pill testing at major events and festivals in the municipality, with six councillors voting in favour of the motion and three against.
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It comes in the midst of a coronial inquest into six drug-related deaths at festivals in New South Wales.
The Tasmanian government is staunchly opposed to the idea of pill testing, while the peak body for the nation's doctors, the Australian Medical Association, has backed pill testing trials in the wake of the recent festival deaths.
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The Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs Council Tasmania has also thrown its support behind the idea.
The pill testing process involves drugs being tested to determine whether they've been cut with poisonous substances.
For the second year in a row, a pill testing trial was held at Canberra's Groovin' the Moo music festival in April this year. It found that seven of the samples submitted contained deadly substances.
During Monday night's council meeting, Councillor Holly Ewin's motion to offer in-principle support for pill testing services passed with four amendments, despite some confusion which initially saw Councillor Mike Dutta vote against the motion despite supporting it.
Cr Ewin said the next step for the council would be to do some "mythbusting" around pill testing by enabling the local community to find out more about what pill testing actually is.
"[The passage of the motion] adds a very strong and legitimate community-based voice to ... lobby the state government that this is the thing that people want," she said.
"[Pill testing] is based on evidence, it is a harm-minimising strategy."
As a result of the vote, the council will write to the state government - which has the power to implement drug analysis services - calling on it to facilitate a pill testing trial after the NSW inquest's findings are made public.
Four amendments were made to the motion, including one to ensure the council did not contribute financially to any prospective costs of pill testing, one to require a letter be written to the government and another to remove the need for an officer report to be compiled.
Councillors Marti Zucco, Jeff Briscoe and Tanya Denison were the only three councillors who ultimately voted against the motion.
A government spokesperson reaffirmed the government's anti-pill testing stance.
"There is no safe use of any illicit drug and our concern is that a testing service indicating an illegal drug is free of certain contaminants sends a mixed and risky message," the spokesperson said.
"Our focus must be on what we can do to further reduce the use of drugs.
"We have a number of preventative initiatives aimed at reducing harm and the Tasmanian government will be continuing to work on the issue of substance abuse - as part of this, we will continue to seek advice and work with stakeholders."