Run by charity The Loop, the scheme offered confidential forensic testing of drugs at this weekend’s (22-25 July) festival to let attendees know exactly what they were taking.
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Cambridgeshire, UK festival Secret Garden Party has become the first UK event to introduce drug testing for festivalgoers on site.
Police are now investigating two possible drug-related deaths at T In The Park this year, the second night of Buenos Aires’ festival Time Warp was canceled after five drug related deaths, and an unknown drug circulating at Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, Florida, killed two people and landed another 57 in hospital. It’s the first time the service has been offered at an event of this kind in the UK-in the past, The Loop has only had access to substances dropped in amnesty bins, or obtained via police or paramedics. “Harm reduction and welfare is a vital part of hosting any event and it’s an area that for too long has seen little development or advancement”, said SGP founder Fred Fellowes. Among the results, tests uncovered extra high-strength MDMA, as well as numerous examples of “misrepresented” substances, including anti-malaria tablets posing as ketamine, and ammonium sulphate instead of MDMA.
‘Until the laws are reformed, testing and encouraging safer drug use is the least we can do’.
More than 80 “substances of concern” were assessed in the first day and a half of this year’s festival, with a quarter of them disposed of by users after they were found to be toxic or falsely sold.
The scheme was developed in partnership with Cambridgeshire Police and local public health authories in an attempt to reduce the risk of overdoses and poisonings at the festival. “It is now up to others to follow” he said, ‘to protect the health and safety of their customers.
The festival was also pleased to offer the service.
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Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation told The Guardian ‘the police are increasingly pragmatic about drug-taking at festivals, and this is a case of them showing leadership and recognising that the priority should be health and wellbeing, not enforcement’. “In truth it would be negligent for them not to”.
