A young woman is dead and another is in an induced coma after attending the Stereosonic music festival in Sydney.
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Frustrated police revealed the astonishing toll the day had taken on Sunday afternoon, and said the culture of drug use at festivals must change.
Music fans at Stereosonic at Olympic Park in 2014. As of now, the circumstances behind the 25-year-old’s passing are not known.
The second woman, a 22-year-old tourist from Britain, has made a satisfactory recovery, he said.
Yesterday’s death serves as a reminder that we need readily available drug testing kits at festivals, to make information more available about safe use and harm reduction.
A further 23 people have been issued with cautions for possessing cannabis.
“It’s extremely frustrating. We’ve been working hand-in-hand with the organisers and promoters and venues to put out numerous messages to try and warn people about the effect of drugs but unfortunately the message does not seem to get through to some people”.
“Totem Onelove conveys our deepest condolences to the friends and family of the patron who tragically passed away on Saturday night at Sydney Stereosonic”.
Simple as that. Increased police numbers leads to nothing other than increased arrest numbers, and while you may argue that confiscating drugs from those 69 people is saving lives (it may well be), the real issues have still not been addressed.
The event was expected to be safe and secure after officers from South West Metropolitan Region, Police Transport Command, Traffic and Highway Patrol, Public Order and Riot Squad, Mounted Unit and the Dog Unit undertook a massive police operation.
Police have been called to Sydney Olympic Park twice in the past week to find individuals attempting to drill holes in buildings and stash dozens of ecstasy pills before the site goes into “lockdown” this week. You put these things your body, you don’t know how you’re going to react.
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Police said the number of arrests was alarming and that they were disappointed with the behaviour of numerous 50,000 people who were at the event at Sydney Olympic Park.
