I really don't understand why they need sniffer dogs there to be honest. They never learned their lesson after the death of the girl at Perth's Big Day Out last year it seems.

My friends and I went along to Stereosonic and decided that for the sake of our careers we would drop outside - rather than run the risk of being done for posession.

So we each had a pill at 2pm in the afternoon.

The risk of being caught won't mean I won't take anything. But, like @pirog, will mean that I might go later in the afternoon - will hang out at home with friends before dropping outside.

To add my bit, most people caught with less than 3g of ecstasy (ie the full weight of the pills including the MDMA and all the other non-MDMA fillers) will go to drug diversion with no criminal record. I know the experience of being caught is stressful, but so is harm from swallowing mass pills.  weigh this 'no criminal record' vs harm next time..

sniffer dogs at festivals are a joke. especially dance festivals. let's be honest with ourselves, everybody here knows that people go to dance festivals to get off chops and dance for hours, go crazy and talk to randoms. that's what these festivals are designed for, they're little munt playgrounds. most of the djs are certainly on something. we can't ignore how interwoven music and drugs and drug culture is and always has been.

the main thing that having dogs achieves is freaking people out and making them drop or dunk their stash. sniffer dogs are highly ineffective, they get tired quickly in large crowds. the majority of people detected have pot on them or have been smoking it on their clothes. dogs rarely detect big-time dealers, which is apparently what police are aiming to do.

i routinely go to festivals and take bountifuls of drugs in without a problem. and have a fantastic day : - )

I agree with apothecary - festival and concert attendees have to weigh up the consequences of being caught with illegal substances or incurring significant physical and/or mental harms as a result of freaking out and dumping a whole bunch of drugs at once.

In Victoria the legal consequences are generally less severe than those in other states and territories - as apothecary stated, being caught with less than a traffickable amount of illicit substances in Vic. usually results in drug diversion (i.e. 2 compulsory counselling sessions without a criminal record).

Random also makes a good point - the dogs are ineffective (studies have shown this). However, I don't see them leaving the gates of events anytime soon....

Can sniffer dogs even detect pills? Surely you just need to bag them up properly. I would have thought this would be more of a pot thing.

I think it's a bit much though, considering the reactions from people, and that poor girl that overdosed in Perth because she was scared of being caught.

But hey, if they think they're keeping the streets safe by taking drugs off of people that are aren't going to cause any trouble, well done them.*grumbles*

I suppose they have to look like they are taking some kind of stance.

I see three main aspects to using sniffer dogs

1 - they are visual and potentially a deterrent to large-scale  (is that 10 pills plus?) drug users at events - after all, they dont catchlarge scale drug pushers that often....maybe it does work

2 - the media has something to focus on, so as well as focusing on GHB overdoses, they can also focus on and get pretty looking video footage from events (whilst their own staff attend events...)

3 - this all shows that police are "doing something" about the drug problems in society etc

it looks like more of a political action than a real deterrant, but that is also common, and wins elections etc