Fresh calls to end use of sniffer dogs at festivals after report finds low success rate

New figures indicate drug detection dogs have a low success rate. Some are urging for an end to their use at music festivals – as well as the practice of strip searches – and the implementation of pill testing.

NSW Police search figures showed drug detection dogs scored an average success rate of 25 per cent during the last decade. Source: Getty / Mark Metcalfe

Key Points

• NSW Police search figures showed an average drug detection success rate of just 25 per cent during the last decade.
• There are calls for an end to sniffer dogs and strip searches at festivals, and the introduction of pill testing.
• "No drug is safe, even if it is tested," the police minister has told reporters.

A report exposing the low success rate of drug-detection dogs has sparked renewed calls for an end to their use along with strip searches at music festivals.

NSW Police search figures show the dogs scored an average drug detection success rate of just 25 per cent during the last decade, while a Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) review revealed officers routinely failed to follow proper strip search procedures.

Of the more than 94,000 general and strip searches undertaken from 2013 to June 30 this year after a drug dog detection, nearly 71,000 yielded no illicit drugs, according to figures released to Greens MP Cate Faehrmann.

Faehrmann has called on NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley to explain why the commission's recommendations from an initial review in 2020 - which also found similar failings - had not been adopted.

"It's outrageous that less than one in three police officers is following the rules for protecting privacy and dignity in strip searches."

In NSW, officers can undertake either general or strip searches if they have a reasonable suspicion of illicit drug possession.

However, an indication by a drug detection dog on its own does not entitle police to routinely conduct a search, and officers are required to ask follow-up questions, such as whether a person is in possession of banned drugs.

Faehrmann, who is the Greens' drug law reform and harm minimisation spokeswoman, said the use of sniffer dogs is leading to people being needlessly searched, and called for the canines to be banned from music festivals.

"Unequivocally, drug dogs don't stop people taking drugs, they just lead to riskier behaviour and sometimes that riskier behaviour can have fatal outcomes," she told reporters outside the Listen Out music festival in Sydney on Saturday.

Catley said she has asked NSW Police for a briefing on the LECC report in relation to drug-detection dogs and is awaiting a response.

"No drug is safe, even if it is tested," she told reporters in Sydney on Saturday.

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Health Minister Ryan Park said earlier in the week the use of drug-detection dogs was only one part of how police worked to uncover illicit substances.

But he conceded it was likely the issue would come up at a drug summit due to take place next year.

A NSW Police spokeswoman said drug-detection dogs were very effective with the "majority" of canine searches resulting "in either drugs being located, or the person admitting recent contact with illegal drugs".

A police sniffer dog on patrol during the Splendour in the Grass music festival. Source: Getty / Matt Jelonek

Faehrmann has pointed towards a series of recommendations made by deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame in 2019, following an inquest into six MDMA-related deaths at NSW music festivals between December 2017 and January 2019.

In it, Grahame called for pill testing and said the heavy police and drug detection dog presence encouraged risky, and sometimes fatal, behaviour like panic ingestion to avoid detection.