Associate Professor David Caldicott is an Emergency Consultant at the Emergency Department of the Calvary Hospital in Canberra and a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the Australian National University with a special interest in toxicology.

He is a spokesperson for the Australian Science Media Centre on issues of illicit drug use and the medical response to terrorism and disasters.

Dr. Caldicott designed and piloted the Welsh Emergency Department Investigation of Novel Substances (WEDINOS) project in the UK, a unique program using regional emergency departments as sentinel monitoring hubs for the emergence and spread of novel illicit products associated with harm.  He has replicated this work in Australia with the ACT Investigation of Novel Substances (ACTINOS) Group.

He has published widely in the peer-reviewed literature, and presents nationally and internationally on the subject of the use of the emergency department as an observatory for the surveillance of novel psychotropic substances as they evolve, as well as their effects in acute overdose.  He remains a staunch advocate for harm reduction, maintaining that drugs policy is an issue of public health, and not political morality.

Dr. Caldicott, is the designer of the Groovin the Moo pill testing trial, which he believes was very successful.  He has been a vocal supporter of this kind of harm-minimisation approach as the best way to help stop further music festival deaths.

He has been very disappointed by continued reluctance to implement pill testing at music festivals.

‘There is pretty conclusive evidence that people who identify their drugs as being something other than what they expected at music festivals will do something other than take those drugs.  So if they’re not putting their drugs in their mouth then they’re less likely to overdose. It’s pretty straightforward. As long as we continue to do what we’re doing in Australia in regards to drug policy, we’ll continue to get the same results.’