• 🇳🇿 🇲🇲 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 🇦🇺 🇦🇶 🇮🇳
    Australian & Asian
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

NEWS : 12.7.09 - Dance party promoter says Melbourne has a drug problem

M

modoq

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
280
Dance party promoter says Melbourne has a drug problem

By Nui Te Koha
July 12, 2009 12:00am

THE world's biggest dance party promoter has scrapped a key Melbourne event after claiming the city has a drug problem.

Amsterdam-based events giant ID&T said a dance subculture that included GBH users had forced it out.

Trance Energy, an ID&T event attended by 10,000 revellers at Calder Park last Good Friday, was marred by 26 GBH overdoses.

"There is a small group in Melbourne who are stupid and take too many stupid drugs in a stupid way," ID&T director Duncan Stutterheim said.

"And it's a shame. We invested, we had a long-term vision, but in Melbourne we cannot do this.

"It's not responsible to go on . . . with this hardcore group who ruin events."

Mr Stutterheim said other cities that hosted Trance Energy did not have any GBH casualties.

"Don't ask me why Sydney can handle this music and be responsible and Melbourne cannot," he said.

Mr Stutterheim urged continuing discussions about drug dangers.

"The culture (in the Netherlands) encourages talking about these things," he said.

"I find in Australia it's different. They are not open about it. They don't address the problem. They shove it away."

Authorities have sided with Mr Stutterheim and applauded his tough stance.

Ambulance Victoria operations manager Paul Holman worked at Trance Energy last year.

"I was out there amongst it and it was a bloody disgrace," Mr Holman said. "But, as an event, organisers could not have done more.

"We gave them a health plan, told them what they needed on site and gave them a level of response."

Mr Holman blamed a hard dance and trance subculture in Melbourne, in which GBH use is rife.

"This drug causes grievous bodily harm," he said.

ID&T will focus on its flagship event in Melbourne, Sensation, which has a five-season New Year's Eve residency at Etihad Stadium.

Sensation, which debuted last year, was a runaway success with 45,000 partygoers and no incidents.

Mr Stutterheim will visit Melbourne in September to launch the new Sensation show, Ocean of White.

Police issued a statement on the Trance Energy decision, which said: "Police . . . do not believe drug taking at any event is acceptable."
Click to expand...

Herald Sun
 
"Don't ask me why Sydney can handle this music and be responsible and Melbourne cannot," he said.
Click to expand...

This is a very interesting question, and I'd love some insight from people who live in Melbourne on it.
 
'G' culture and use is entrenched in the Melbourne dance scene, whereas in Sydney, it's yet to take hold and occur to the same level. Obviously 'G' is used in Sydney, as it is all over Australia, but certainly not as widely as in Melbourne.
 
Maybe, but it seems almost as prominant in Sydney as it is in melbourne to me, yet they have a fraction of the issues and none of the media frenzy. Is there something cultural going on?

Likewise, it's 'legal' in Europe, yet they don't seem to have the same issues, despite how available it is.
 
Let's also add to the fact that stimulants of all sorts are far more widely available/proliferated throughout the country's East-Northernmost states...
 
LOL The small number of dumb ass hard dance G crews have brought it on themselves once again.

Take a bow you uneducated idiots.

You have ruined countless Melbourne events and soon you will find it hard to party anywhere.

I haven't been to a big hard dance party since you fucked my night at two tribes many years ago...

The PLUR has been gone for quite some time now

I'd be cautious about going to the next sensation at etihad, it's going to be crawling with federals.

Doof on!
 
^ They always call it GBH or "Grevious Bodily Harm," just more anti drug scare tactics and bullshit. I have never heard a user of the drug refer to it as GBH, only the media and police.

I am sad to see this, eventually Melbourne is going to end up with very few events because it seems too many idiots don't understand the concept of dosing G responsibly and ruin it for everyone else, not to mention make drug users in general look like fools.

These blowouts would happen a lot less if these people were aware of sites like Bluelight and invested some time educating themselves on what they put in their bodies. It is sad to see the cops just saying "young people ar gambling with their lives when they choose to take this stuff" and "don't take it or you will end up like these people who overdosed," when they could be informing people of the steep dose response curve and giving advice on how to use it with less risk. But that wouldn't be socially resposnislbe would it?
 
CrackSnapplePot said:
Well done news.com.au for further purporting misinformation... why are they calling it GBH?
Click to expand...

It's just dumb ass reporters who don't know any better...

Maybe they have the same level of education as the people blowing out on G at doofs? LOL
 
I wonder why melbourne has such a culture of reckless drug use, even sydney, with it's similar proliferation of GHB in the scene, doesn't have a fraction of the issues, as the ID&T rep noted.
 
Crankinit said:
I wonder why melbourne has such a culture of reckless drug use, even sydney, with it's similar proliferation of GHB in the scene, doesn't have a fraction of the issues, as the ID&T rep noted.
Click to expand...

I can't work it out

Go to a hard dance party in Melb and have a look

They do my head in these days. You can't enjoy yourself anywhere near as much as you used to be able to. It's a circus of fights, blowouts and dipshit pipe/speed bomb dealers.

Compared to events i've been to around the country and over seas they just seem to be full of big ego's which might perpetuate the over use/abuse of drugs.

Maybe sensation could bring a big santa sack of MDMA from the Netherlands as a late xmas pressy on new years MMMmmMMMMMMmmmmmMMMMmm
 
Maybe sensation could bring a big santa sack of MDMA from the Netherlands as a late xmas pressy on new years MMMmmMMMMMMmmmmmMMMMmm
Click to expand...

Haha yeah. ID&T should be proactive about the problem and bring a nice big block of crystal MDMA over from the netherlands with them :p
 
PsiloSubNaut said:
I can't work it out

Go to a hard dance party in Melb and have a look

They do my head in these days. You can't enjoy yourself anywhere near as much as you used to be able to. It's a circus of fights, blowouts and dipshit pipe/speed bomb dealers.

Compared to events i've been to around the country and over seas they just seem to be full of big ego's which might perpetuate the over use/abuse of drugs.

Maybe sensation could bring a big santa sack of MDMA from the Netherlands as a late xmas pressy on new years MMMmmMMMMMMmmmmmMMMMmm
Click to expand...

It seems to me that Melbourne got such a reputation for being Australia's EDM capital, that the scene has gotten huge. This has led to the bigger festivals, you only need to look how the futures, steresonics, etc . . . . have gotten bigger and bigger and more and more. This has to have the effect of attracting people who aren't all about the scene, but love the fun and "the buzz".
The knock on effect is that you are trying to keep "the buzz" up to a lot more people then you need to keep supply, this has unfortunately led (on top of the feds having some big busts and clamping down) to lower quality pills and other drugs being pushed.

It seems that Melbourne will fall in a hole within a couple of years, between crackdowns and promoters not wanting the hassle I see the focus getting away from Melbourne and moving to Sydney once again.

This may not be a bad thing for the scene, as it may go back to grass roots, smaller shows, smaller parties, for the people who really love scene, not the ones who thinks its cool and will get drunk or use whatever drug everyone else is doing.

We will see, but expect to be doing it tough over the next couple of years. Let's hope with the downfall of the city fests that the doofs don't get spoilt with the "zero plur" types that are many of the attendees of such festivals.

There is only one thing that may save us, is that the focus of LE changes to G and they actually realise it might be best to let ecstasy slip through the net a couple of times.

And when I say ecstasy I don't mean, 4MMC, BZP, mcpp, PMA, MDA, MDEA . . . . . I MEAN MDMA!!!!!!!

Baysie out!

PLUR!!!!!
 
Seriously, too many people are blaming lack of MDMA for the shift towards negative attitudes. It is pretty fucking pathetic imho if the whole tone of an event is based on the drug everyone is on and I fucking love drugs.

It has to do with ego's and it has to do with the scene getting more and more popular and instead of the people who truly love the music and want to have a good time it has attracted a lot of posers who are only there because they percieve it as cool. Many of these dickheads also think it is cool to start fights and to have competitions to see who can take the most drugs and that leads to problems.

The police shouldn't let MDMA slip through the net in favour of busting other drugs, the police and the Government should make a real effort to educate people about the risks of taking drugs and how to avoid them.

If the information available on Bluelight was made available to the general public then a lot of these blowouts wouldn't happen. The police, Government and media are all too happy to say how easy it is to OD on G, they are not so keen to let people know that oral syringes are best for measuring doses, that you should be conservative when using a new batch, not combine with other depressants including alcohol, etc.

Only when that happens are we going to see a significant drop in the amount of G blowouts, increased efforts to bust G users will do little, if anything, just like previous efforts against other drugs have done fuck all.
 
drug_mentor said:
Seriously, too many people are blaming lack of MDMA for the shift towards negative attitudes. It is pretty fucking pathetic imho if the whole tone of an event is based on the drug everyone is on and I fucking love drugs.
Click to expand...

I hope you don't think that is the point I was trying to make

drug_mentor said:
It has to do with ego's and it has to do with the scene getting more and more popular and instead of the people who truly love the music and want to have a good time it has attracted a lot of posers who are only there because they percieve it as cool. Many of these dickheads also think it is cool to start fights and to have competitions to see who can take the most drugs and that leads to problems.
Click to expand...

This was the point I was actually trying to make. However I do think that the hard line on MDMA has led to people moving to other drugs . . . I may be wrong, but just my opinion.
 
I think the drop in quality in pills has had more to do with people turning to other drugs than a hard line on it. Sure there have been a few busts but the reason pills suck for the most part is that pressers have realised that piperazines and other crap are 10 times cheaper than MDMA to press and that 90% of pill users will eat them like candy regardless.

I think most drugs can promote openness, sociability and friendliness but it comes down to the attitude of the user, the drugs can't do all the work.
 
They can't, but they definately help. No matter how you look at it, a large part of the openness and the accepting vibe of rave culture stems directly or indirectly from the culture around and effects of MDMA. If you take the MDMA out of the equation, it's just another music scene.
 
Personally I suspect most of the difference between Sydney and Melbourne is the media. I can't know this for sure, but after having partied just as much in both towns, I know that they're equally as bad in terms of drug use. I simply think the media has caught onto it and run with it more in Melbourne. I'd be suprised if there was a huge difference in the number of overdoses between a similar sized Sydney and Melbourne rave, I just think Sydney's media picks up on it less.
 
^ While I have no experience partying or using drugs in Sydney I have to doubt that is the case.

I suspect if there were half as many overdoses/blowouts resulting in hospitalisation at an event in any state as there have been in these Melbourne events the media would pick up on it sooner or later. Probably sooner rather than later.

Also the fact that the organisations holding these events are refusing to hold events in Melbourne and saying we have a drug problem indicates that it is not going on in Sydney to the same extent.

Nightclub blowouts may be at a similar level but in my mind there is clearly a lot less people blowing out at these big events in Sydney (or any other state/territory for that matter) than in Melbourne.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top