It's Friday evening at the Shambhala Music Festival and a young woman in denim cut-off shorts is using an X-acto knife to separate a small quantity of a white powdered substance into three piles on a large white dinner plate.
She watches anxiously as a volunteer uses glove-clad hands to dispense a drop of fluid onto one of the piles, turning it dark purple and confirming that the substance contains MDMA, the main ingredient in Ecstacy.
Outside the tent near Nelson, B.C., where more than a dozen partiers are lined up, whiteboards bear descriptions of bad drugs that are circulating at the event: 'Green playboy bunny baggie - sold as ketamine - actually methoxetamine.' 'Bag with clubs on it - sold as E - unknown.'
This is harm reduction at work. The approach is being touted by health advocates after a rash of deaths across the country thrust music festivals - and the drug habits of the young people who attend them - into the spotlight. The heightened scrutiny has raised questions about how much effort festivals should be expected to make to keep participants out of harm's way.
The popularity of music festivals is on the rise, with new events springing up every year. Electronic music alone is pegged as a $6.2-billion global industry, according to the Association for Electronic Music, but that's only a slice of the pie. Canadian music festivals play a wide array of genres including rock, hip hop and country. Roughly 30,000 people flock to Kelowna every year for the Center of Gravity festival, while the Squamish Valley Music Festival drew more than 100,000 guests this year.
But as the number of festivals and attendees increases, so does the likelihood that something will go wrong. Some 80 people were hospitalized and one woman died after a suspected drug overdose at the Boonstock festival in Penticton, B.C. A man was found dead in his tent at the Pemberton Music Festival, which saw an estimated 25,000 guests, last month. At Toronto's VELD Music Festival, which hosted roughly 70,000 partygoers, two people died after taking drugs and another 13 people were sent to hospital. Some people were taking upwards of 10 pills or picking up drugs off the ground, Detective-Sergeant Peter Trimble told media.
Some event organizers solemnly deny the existence of drugs at their events, but the harm-reduction approach forces organizers and volunteers to walk the thin line between acknowledging the reality of drug use and actually condoning it.
The folks at Shambhala say arming partygoers with safety information - such as the importance of staying hydrated, or which drugs mix well together and which ones don't - can keep people out of trouble.
'We're not here to crash parties,' says Shaun Wilson, the festival's security manager. 'We're here to help people party safe.'
It's virtually impossible to prevent drugs from getting inside a days-long event that hosts campers and their gear, he acknowledges.
'We're not able, in our searches, to go through everybody's jar of peanut butter and their prescription bottles to see what's a controlled substance and what's not,' says Mr. Wilson.
At outdoor music festivals, heat, dehydration, marathon dance sessions and tainted drugs sold by unscrupulous dealers can combine to create a 'perfect storm' of risk factors says Dr. Adam Lund, a researcher at the University of British Columbia. In some cases, a person in the midst of a crisis may sequester themselves instead of asking for help because they're afraid they'll be reported to the authorities.
In a worst-case scenario, that can lead to an unpleasant death. Chloe Sage, who volunteers with the non-profit group Ankors that operated the drug-testing tent at Shambhala, says she has been seeing a resurrgence of PMMA, or paramethoxymethamphetamine, being sold as MDMA, and suspects it might be responsible for the spate of recent incidents. It's a dangerous drug that can cause users to overheat.
'It's like their thermostat breaks and they keep heating from the inside like a microwave,' says Ms. Sage. 'People have dropped dead from it; that's why it stopped being popular.'
One of the challenges in providing medical aid at large gatherings is the lack of research on the topic.
'There are no provincial or national guidelines that say what the minimum standard of care should be,' says Dr. Lund. 'The evidence base for best practice at large gatherings is really thin.'
Dr. Lund is hoping to change that. For the past five years he has been leading the mass gathering medicine interest group at UBC's department of emergency medicine. Their database contains information chronicling more than 20,000 patient encounters at everything from music festivals to sporting events.
Their goal is to identify risk factors and to determine how much of a burden certain types of events are likely to place on local hospitals. This summer, Dr. Lund's team is collecting data from Shambhala, Squamish and Pemberton.
It's late Saturday night at Shambhala and the Sanctuary is filled with people, most of them wrapped in blankets and curled up on mattresses or inside hammocks. Psychedelic first aid, as it's colloquially called, provides a safe, non-judgmental space for people to hang out if they're having an intense drug trip and need to get away from the loud music and the bright lights. It's staffed by volunteers who have experience in the mental health field.
In addition to the Sanctuary and the drug testing booth, which festival organizers contract out to B.C.-based Ankors, the festival has a safe space just for women, a harm-reduction outreach team and a sexual health division. It even has a sober camp for people struggling with addiction that holds three AA-style meetings a day.
The festival's medical facilities are housed in a permanent wooden structure that's staffed around the clock by doctors, nurses and paramedics - even administrators to organize medical records. The first aid team typically treats 200-300 patients a day, most of them for scrapes, blisters and mild dehydration. There are only about a dozen serious, drug-related issues each year, says Dr. Brendan Munn, the head of medical, calling it a small fraction given that the festival's population is over 10,000.
The festival also has more than 100 security guards, plus a plain-clothes investigation team to crack down on trafficking. Mr. Wilson says he strives to identify security workers who embody the Shambhala spirit.
'We try to avoid the door-bouncer type,' he explains. 'We want the caregiver types.'
Security doesn't go after people for possession of drugs, but it does devote energy to finding drug dealers, says Mr. Wilson, especially those believed to be peddling dangerous drugs that are sending people to the first aid tent. 'Hopefully they end up in an RCMP vehicle leaving the site; that's our goal,' says Mr. Wilson.
He notes the festival has fewer fights and sexual assaults than any other music festival he has worked at - a fact he attributes to the event's no-booze policy.
But in spite of the festival's efforts at reducing risks, accidents happen. This year seven people were transferred to hospital from the event site, organizers said. It's unclear how many of those transfers were drug related. And in 2012, a man attending Shambhala died from an overdose after ingesting a cocktail of illegal and prescription drugs.
The term 'overdose' typically conjures up images of a street youth in tattered clothes slumped in an alleyway with a heroin needle sticking out of his or her arm. But in the case of the young people who have died while partying at music festivals this summer, that's a far distance from the truth. Friends, family and co-workers describe them as bright, hardworking young people with promising futures who were simply looking to have a good time.
Annie Truong-Le, the 20-year-old who died after taking drugs at Toronto's VELD Music Festival earlier this month, was a political science major at York University who had interned at a city councillor's office and helped with the NDP campaign during the recent Ontario election.
Ms. Truong-Le was too busy studying and working with community non-profits to be involved with drugs, says Chris Rugel, who had volunteered with her at Mentoring Arts Tutoring Athletics.
'She was a smart girl, she was going to school, she was doing all the right things,' says Mr. Rugel. 'I don't know what happened that day at VELD. It's really sad. But I can only attribute it to her youth and having a little bit of fun and making a really bad decision that any one of us could have made in her position.'
Councillor Anthony Perruzza said Ms. Truong-Le had interned in his office for six months during the summer of 2013 and had stayed in touch since then, helping to organize a number of community events.
She was well-spoken, goal-oriented and passionate about helping young people find a sense of direction, said Mr. Perruzza.
'She was going places,' he said. ' I would never have looked at her and said, 'There are problems here.' Absolutely not.'
The pictures emerging of the other festival-goers who have died this summer are similar. Willard Amurao, a 22-year-old from Ajax, Ont. who also died after ingesting party drugs at VELD, had completed a diploma in marketing at George Brown College and was working as a sales associate, according to his Linkedin profile.
Lynn Tolocka, a 24-year-old woman from Leduc, Alta., died after she collapsed from a suspected drug overdose at the Boonstock Music Festival in Penticton, B.C. According to a National Post story, Ms. Tolocka was a martial-arts enthusiast who grew up in a U.S. military family.
And Nick Phongsavath, who was found dead in a tent at the Pemberton Music Festival last month, was a 21-year-old software engineering student at the University of Regina. Mr. Phongsavath was among the winners of the Regina Engineering Competition last fall, according to a blog post by the Regina Engineering Students' Society.
'We're not here to crash parties. We're here to help people party safe.'
People who spend hundreds of dollars to go away to music festivals and wind up in trouble are a very different demographic than street youth grappling with addictions, says Dr. Lund.
'People who are going out to these kinds of destination events are going there to have a really good time,' he says. 'They're using whatever drugs they're using to enhance their experience, to have a euphoric feeling.'
Despite the associations people may draw between electronic music and drugs, Dr. Lund argues that it's unfair to blame the genre, or music festivals in general. After all, drug overdoses at concerts are not a new phenomenon, he says, pointing to Woodstock as an example.
'Every generation detests the music of its youth,' says Dr. Lund. Even Elvis was considered too risky during his time. 'This is just a different brand. ... I don't think that electronic dance music should be particularly villainized for that.'
It's unclear what causes some people to go too far over the edge. 'That's a much larger sociological question,' says Dr. Lund.
'Understanding the role of drugs in general in our society is a giant question, and better answers would save a lot of lives.'
Entities 0 Name: Dr. Lund Count: 7 1 Name: Shambhala Count: 6 2 Name: Wilson Count: 4 3 Name: B.C. Count: 3 4 Name: Toronto Count: 2 5 Name: Truong-Le Count: 2 6 Name: Pemberton Music Festival Count: 2 7 Name: Penticton Count: 2 8 Name: MDMA Count: 2 9 Name: Ontario Count: 1 10 Name: Kelowna Count: 1 11 Name: Association for Electronic Music Count: 1 12 Name: Anthony Perruzza Count: 1 13 Name: Lynn Tolocka Count: 1 14 Name: George Brown College Count: 1 15 Name: Mentoring Arts Tutoring Athletics Count: 1 16 Name: Tolocka Count: 1 17 Name: VELD Music Festival Count: 1 18 Name: Willard Amurao Count: 1 19 Name: National Post Count: 1 20 Name: Woodstock Count: 1 21 Name: Leduc Count: 1 22 Name: York University Count: 1 23 Name: Annie Truong-Le Count: 1 24 Name: UBC Count: 1 25 Name: Squamish Count: 1 26 Name: Peter Trimble Count: 1 27 Name: Ajax Count: 1 28 Name: Squamish Valley Music Festival Count: 1 29 Name: University of Regina Count: 1 30 Name: Dr. Adam Lund Count: 1 31 Name: U.S. Count: 1 32 Name: Chloe Sage Count: 1 33 Name: Shaun Wilson Count: 1 34 Name: University of British Columbia Count: 1 35 Name: Shambhala Music Festival Count: 1 36 Name: Regina Engineering Competition Count: 1 37 Name: NDP Count: 1 38 Name: Chris Rugel Count: 1 39 Name: Nick Phongsavath Count: 1 40 Name: RCMP Count: 1 41 Name: Rugel Count: 1 42 Name: Phongsavath Count: 1 43 Name: Perruzza Count: 1 44 Name: PMMA Count: 1 45 Name: Sage Count: 1 46 Name: Linkedin Count: 1 47 Name: Pemberton Count: 1 48 Name: Alta. Count: 1 49 Name: Regina Engineering Students ' Society Count: 1 50 Name: Dr. Brendan Munn Count: 1 51 Name: Nelson Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1lZJ5GE Title: Music festival PSA shows the sweaty results of a bad MDMA trip Description: Electric Zoo is a three-day electronic music festival in New York, and it is very worried about you. To make sure festival visitors avoid bad trips, its organizers enlisted Dexter writer James Manos Jr. to create a two-minute PSA that warns people about the dangers of MDMA - often known by excitable youngsters in the US as "Molly."
No comments:
Post a Comment