'Hundreds if not thousands' of pills could be circulating in bad drug batch

Ambulance Victoria director Vanessa Gorman said eight of the nine were in a critical condition and had been put on breathing tubes after falling unwell on January 6 at the Flemington Racecourse rave.

Ms Gorman could not confirm which drugs were consumed but said seven people inside and two outside the venue fell unwell over several hours.

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill believes the overdoses were down to a particularly bad batch of MDMA circulating in the community.

"I don't think we've seen this amount of people in one event become so critically unwell that they needed to be placed into an induced coma," Mr Hill said.

"We have a lot of people very, very sick.

"There's always side effects to drugs but this would have to be one of the worst that we've seen as far as people being so critically unwell at one event."

He said patients were unconscious and having seizures as their heart rate, blood pressure and temperature skyrocketed.

He said one person had a temperature, well above normal levels, at 41 degrees.

Ms Gorman said warm weather and heat created by thousands of people dancing at the Hardmission festival could have exacerbated their condition.

The ambulance union believes the incident highlighted the need for pill testing at festivals, not only to inform potential drug users about what they would be taking but to help emergency services allocate resources.

"It gives an option for people who are concerned about what they might be taking to check it and if they find out that it's the deadly substance that put eight people in hospital the week before then maybe they're not going to take it," Mr Hill said.

"These drugs are not made in batches of seven or eight, they'll be hundreds if not thousands of these exact same tablets out there today and many more music festivals coming up over the summer season.

"It's terrifying to think that this exact same drug might cause the exact same outcome for other partygoers."

Victorian minister Steve Dimopoulos said the government has no plans to introduce pill testing and was focused on harm minimisation.

He said poison authorities were still working out exactly what happened including whether there was something in the pills or people had a reaction.

Coalition spokesman David Davis said the opposition does not support pill testing.

But upper house crossbenchers Legalise Cannabis, the Greens and Animal Justice Party say the Flemington incident shows why Victoria should follow the lead of ACT and introduce the measure over concerns young people could die.

Victoria Police confirmed it was investigating reports of people becoming unwell at the festival.

A spokesperson said officers were "not aware of any critical health incidents during the event" but were making inquiries.

Hardmission festival organisers were contacted for comment.

Police urged anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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With Australian Associated Press