Seventy-seven groups have signed a statement from the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association in collaboration with RMIT University urging the state government to introduce drug checking and an enhanced public alert system through the use of mobile and fixed pill testing.

Pill testing at events or festivals, or at a stand-alone centre, would allow people to find out what is in their drugs while receiving a health intervention, and help them make more informed decisions. Warnings about dangerous drugs could also be shared widely and rapidly with the community.

"There's pop up services that's required for events but we would like to see more of this (fixed testing) implemented in regional centres like Ballarat so we have an ongoing systematic approach to harm minimisation," said Ballarat Community Health chief executive Sean Duffy.

The renewed push to introduce pill testing is in response to several Coroners Court of Victoria investigations into fatal overdoses of novel psychoactive substances which recommended the introduction of pill testing.

Mr Duffy acknowledged pill testing was controversial but said it was an important strategy in reducing the potential for harm.

"It's a difficult concept for people to get their head around but it's ... about saving lives and empowering people to make the right choices. Some of those choices might well be to not take the drug they have been given once they have been tested," he said.

"We want young people, people of all ages to be informed so if they do engage in this sort of illicit drug taking, they are aware of what they are taking."

Mr Duffy said it was a responsibility for Ballarat Community Health to support the push, to speak up and advocate for pill testing to help reduce the risk of overdose.

"We come from a position of harm minimisation. We come from a point of view to educate and inform the public whether it's cigarettes, e-cigarettes or illicit drugs ... to intervene early so we prevent deaths from occurring."

The Coroners Court of Victoria has labelled NPS as an "emerging trend" of deaths and harm.

NPS contributed to the deaths of 47 people in 2021-22, up from three deaths in 2017-18.

In April 2021 it published findings from an inquest into five drug-related deaths linked to the unintended consumption of NPS, and has since investigated further deaths, each time recommending the implementation of drug checking services.

Mr Duffy said illicit drug use continued to be a problem in Ballarat and right across the state.

"It's still there, it's still prevalent, it's still occurring in various different forms and part of the strategy is not to bury our heads the in sand but be open and cognisant that it is happening."

In 2021 there were 315 illicit drug-related hospitalisations - about six per week - in the Ballarat local government area alone.

Pill testing has been implemented in at least 28 countries, with the ACT currently running a drug checking service and Queensland to launch in 2024.

"Drug checking services and early warning systems are evidence-based harm reduction measures that have been successfully used internationally for decades," the statement read.

"We are particularly concerned about the need to build these systems to anticipate and enable swift responses to the arrival of novel fentanyl-type substances and similar high-risk substances that do not yet have a significant presence in Australia."

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During the last term of parliament the Victorian Greens ordered a Parliamentary Budget Office costing of a two-year pill testing trial for both mobile pill testing and a fixed site laboratory. The cost came in at $3.8 million.

"The current war on drugs puts young people's lives at risk," said Victorian Greens drug harm reduction spokesperson Aiv Puglielli.

"The summer festival season is around the corner, and we know people will be taking drugs.

"A criminal approach is not going to keep them safer. Sniffer dogs are not going to keep them safer. Pill testing will."

For confidential alcohol and drug counselling and referral in Victoria call DirectLine on 1800 888 236.