NSW Police will be able to hand out on-the-spot fines of $400 for drug possession at three music festivals being held in Sydney over the Australia Day long weekend.
Officers from Friday will be able to issue the fines as part of a trial recommended by an expert drug panel convened after two deaths at a music festival in September 2018.
"We're absolutely committed to looking at all different avenues to keep people safe," Police Minister Troy Grant told reporters on Thursday.
"We accept that just saying No from our generation may not be penetrating the millennial mindset and we understand that - we're not saying that's the only way forward."
There are three music festivals across the Australia Day long weekend - Electric Gardens at Centennial Park and Hardcore Til I Die and Rolling Loud at Sydney Showgrounds - but the new fines can be issued anywhere.
The police minister said the decision on whether to fine or charge someone caught with drugs would lie with individual officers.
The move comes after five young people died in as many months from suspected drug overdoses after attending NSW music festivals.
The coalition government is paying for extra critical-care doctors, nurses and paramedics to attend festivals this weekend.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian is still resisting calls for pill testing arguing there's not enough evidence to show it saves lives.
Adriana Buccianti, whose 34-year-old son Daniel died in 2012 after taking drugs at a Victorian music festival, will on Friday deliver a petition to NSW parliament calling for governments to introduce pill testing.
