Festivalgoers beginning to question their drug purchases
Ever since the first major music festival at Woodstock in 1969 there has been a problem with dangerous recreational drugs. At that first event a bad batch of LCD resulted in many individuals becoming unwell, spreading a rumour that the drug was poisonous. Organisers responded by announcing over the PA that, “it’s just bad acid, it’s manufactured poorly.”
It is a common myth that recreational drugs such as “legal highs” are safer than Class A drugs, but they are not. The reality is that all drugs pose a great risk to health. For example, one of the biggest problems associated with legal highs is that the ingredients are rarely known. What’s more, impurities are added to enhance the effect of the drugs and this can result in serious side effects.
The same problem is true of Class A drugs; dealers often “cut” cocaine with other substances, such as food colouring, caffeine, speed, painkillers, baking soda and even worming tablets.
45 years on from Woodstock, little has changed; last year, for example, two people died at the Electric Zoo festival in New York following suspected overdoses of Molly, which is a mixture of MDMA and methylone. Methylone is a stimulant used to cut MDMA.
In an effort to combat the problem, one US man has taken it upon himself to help festivalgoers analyse and identify the drugs they are considering taking. Al Jazeera America interviewed Adam Auctor about his drug testing service as part of a harm reduction movement at US music festivals.
He explained that on-site drug testing needed to be fast and simple, making spot testing the preferred method. This involves dispensing a few drops of a liquid onto drugs in their powdered form and looking for specific colour changes. For example, a popular psychedelic drug in the States is called 2CD. When mixed with a specific chemical the white powder turns to a yellowish green every time.
Auctor filmed festivalgoers testing the substances they had bought and one test revealed that they had unknowingly purchased a drug known as bath salts. The composition of this chemical varies a great deal and has been linked with several serious side effects.
Drug testing kits designed to enable people to test the purity of their recreational drugs are becoming more popular in America as festivalgoers are beginning to realise that unscrupulous dealers are selling poorly manufactured drugs that are deliberately cut with cheap products and that the result is significantly more dangerous.
Buyers often have no idea what they are purchasing. Bath salts, also known as cathinones, are being found more frequently in party drugs.
The drug testing kits are made by an anonymous organisation called Bunk Police. Their representatives travel to festivals and sell kits directly to consumers.
The American Drug Enforcement Administration say that all drugs are adulterated with something, the question is with what and how much.
This development highlights an interesting change in the way people view drugs. Although still illegal, legal highs cannot legally be sold for human consumption, many people are willing to take a risk with them; however, unlike in previous decades, users are now actively educating themselves about the ingredients that make up the drugs they are experimenting with.
Although this scheme is unlikely to reduce drug use it may prompt manufacturers and dealers to sell better quality drugs that have not been tainted with harmful cutting agents.