Pubdate: Sat, 16 Aug 2014
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Alexandra Posadzki
Page: S1

A GOOD TIME, A SAFE TIME

After a rash of deaths across the country at music festivals, health 
advocates are promoting a harm-reduction approach to help attendees 
avoid the dire effects of dehydration, tainted drugs and overdoses

It's Friday evening at the Shambhala Music Festival, and a young 
woman in denim cut-offs 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 in gloves dispenses a drop of 
fluid onto one of the piles, turning it dark purple and confirming 
that the substance contains MDMA, the main ingredient in ecstasy.

Outside the tent near Nelson, B.C., where more than a dozen partiers 
are lined up, whiteboards bear descriptions of bad drugs 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. Health advocates are enthusiastic 
about the approach after a rash of deaths across the country thrust 
music festivals - and the drug habits of young people who attend them 
- - into the spotlight. The heightened scrutiny has raised questions 
about how much effort festivals should make to keep participants out 
of harm's way.

The popularity of music festivals is on the rise, with new events 
every year. Electronic music alone is pegged as a $6.2 billion global 
industry, according to the Association for Electronic Music, but that 
is only a slice of the pie. Canadian music festivals play a wide 
array of genres, including rock, hip hop and country. About 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 something will go wrong. About 80 people were admitted to 
hospital and a woman died of a suspected drug overdose at the 
Boonstock festival at the beginning of August in Penticton, B.C.

Last month, a man was found dead in his tent at the Pemberton Music 
Festival, which had an estimated 25,000 guests. At Toronto's VELD 
Music Festival, which attracted about 70,000, two people died after 
taking drugs and another 13 were sent to hospital. Some people took 
upward of 10 pills or picked up drugs off the ground, Det. Sgt. Peter 
Trimble of the Toronto Police told the media. Some organizers deny 
the existence of drugs at their events. The harm reduction approach 
forces organizers and volunteers to walk a fine line between 
acknowledging drug use and condoning it.

Officials at Shambhala say giving people safety information - such as 
the importance of staying hydrated, or which drugs mix well and which 
do not - can keep prevent 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 is virtually impossible to keep drugs out of a days-long event 
with 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," Mr. Wilson says.

At outdoor music festivals, heat, dehydration, marathon dance 
sessions and tainted drugs sold by unscrupulous dealers can create a 
"perfect storm" of risk factors, says Adam Lund, a researcher at the 
University of British Columbia. In some cases, people in the midst of 
a crisis may sequester themselves instead of asking for help for fear 
of being 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, which operated 
the drug-testing tent at Shambhala, says she has been seeing a 
resurgence of PMMA, or paramethoxymethamphetamine, being sold as 
MDMA, and suspects it might be responsible for recent incidents. It 
is 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," she says. "People have dropped dead from 
it; that's why it stopped being popular."

One of the challenges of providing medical aid at large gatherings is 
a lack of research on the topic. "There are no provincial or national 
guidelines that say what the minimum standard of care should be," Dr. 
Lund says. "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 a group at UBC's department of emergency medicine that 
is interested in medical care of people at large events. Its database 
contains information chronicling more than 20,000 patient encounters 
at everything from music festivals to sports. The goal is to identify 
risk factors and 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.

In the Sanctuary It is late Saturday night at Shambhala, and the 
Sanctuary, the festival's chill-out space, is filled with people, 
most wrapped in blankets and curled up on mattresses or in hammocks. 
Psychedelic first aid, as it is colloquially called, provides a safe, 
non-judgmental place for people to go if they are having an intense 
drug trip and need to get away from the loud music and the bright 
lights. It is 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 Ankors, the festival has a safe 
space 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 in a permanent wooden structure 
staffed around the clock with doctors, nurses and paramedics - even 
administrators to organize medical records. The first-aid team 
typically treats 200 to 300 patients a day, most for scrapes, 
blisters and mild dehydration. There are only about a dozen serious, 
drug-related issues each year, says Brendan Munn, the head of 
medical, calling it a small fraction given that the festival's 
population is more than 10,000.

The festival also has more than 100 security guards, plus a 
plainclothes investigation team to crack down on trafficking. Mr. 
Wilson says he strives to find security workers who embody the 
Shambhala spirit. "We try to avoid the door bouncer type," he 
explains. "We want the caregiver types."

Security does not go after people for possession of drugs, but it 
does devote energy to finding drug dealers, Mr. Wilson says, 
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," he says.

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 
no-booze policy.

But in spite of the festival's efforts to reduce risks, accidents 
happen. This year, seven people were taken to hospital, organizers 
said. It is unclear how many hospital admissions were drug related. 
In 2012, a man at Shambhala died of an overdose after ingesting a 
cocktail of illegal and prescription drugs.

A different democraphic The term "overdose" typically conjures up 
images of a street youth in tattered clothes slumped in an alleyway 
with a needle sticking out of one arm. But those who have died at 
music festivals this summer have been described by friends, family 
and co-workers as bright, hard-working 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 this month, was a political science 
major at York University.

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," Mr. Rugel says. "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 any 
one of us could have made in her position."

Toronto Councillor Anthony Perruzza said Ms. Truong-Le interned in 
his office for six months during the summer of 2013 and had stayed in 
touch, helping organize community events.

"She was going places," he says. "I would never have looked at her 
and said, 'There are problems here.' Absolutely not."

The pictures emerging of the other festivalgoers 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 a diploma in 
marketing from George Brown College.

Lynn Tolocka, a 24-year-old from Leduc, Alta., died after she 
collapsed from a suspected drug overdose at the Boonstock Music 
Festival in Penticton, B.C. According to a newspaper report, Ms. 
Tolocka was a martial arts enthusiast who grew up in a U.S. military family.

And Nick Phongsavath, 21, who was found dead in a tent at Pemberton 
Music Festival last month, was a software engineering student at the 
University of Regina and was among the winners of the Regina 
Engineering Competition last fall, according to a blog post.

People who spend hundreds of dollars going to music festivals are a 
different demographic from street youth with addictions, Dr. Lund says.

"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."

Dr. Lund says it is unfair to blame electronic music, or music 
festivals in general. After all, drug overdoses at concerts are not 
new, he says.

"Every generation detests the music of its youth," Dr. Lund says. 
Even Elvis was considered risky once. "This is just a different brand 
.. I don't think that electronic dance music should be particularly 
villainized for that."

[sidebar]

Harm reduction at Shambhala, by the numbers

Ankors compiles statistics every year outlining the results of their 
drug testing efforts at Shambhala Music Festival. The following are 
the stats from the 2013 festival:

Total tests done: 2,254

Number of drugs disposed of after the test: 155 (6.8%)

MDMA capsules that tested positive for MDMA: 1,302

MDMA capsules that tested negative for MDMA: 339

Failure rate of MDMA capsules: 21%

Ketamine samples that tested positive for ketamine: 158

Ketamine samples that tested negative for ketamine: 63

Failure rate of ketamine samples: 29%

Mystery substances: 91

PMMA: 77
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom