News: 6/12/15: Second death rocks music festival

[Verybuffed]

Second death rocks music festival

A DODGY batch of pills stamped with dollar signs that slipped through a police dragnet have been blamed for the death of a young man at a music festival.

The future of the Stereosonic festival is in doubt after the teenager in Adelaide was the second person to die from a drug overdose at the event, held across the country over the past week.

Dozens of tributes to the man were posted on Facebook last night as his friends and family came to grips with the man’s sudden death.

A 20-year-old man and 21-year-old woman were both fighting for their lives after attending the Adelaide event last night, while three festival goers from the Stereosonic event in Melbourne had to be taken to hospital.

More detail is expected to be revealed late this morning at a police media conference in Adelaide.

Victoria Police this morning revealed that drug dogs had led to 70 arrests at the festival, with drugs seized including ecstasy, MDMA, amphetamines, cocaine and cannabis.

Of those held, 56 were issued diversions, six with cautions, two were expected to be charged on

Diversions were given to 56 people, 6 people were issued with cannabis cautions, two were expected to be charged, two others were charged and bailed.

The man’s death at the Adelaide festival comes a week after Sydney pharmacist Sylvia Choi overdosed at the Sydney event after ingesting MDMA dissolved in a bottle of water.

Victoria Police arrested 60 partygoers — 44 males and 16 females — at the event held at Flemington Showgrounds, which was down from the 130 arrested in 2014.

Two people have been charged on summons and two people have been charged and granted bail to appear in court at a later date.

Paramedics treat a woman at the Melbourne Stereosonic music festival. Picture: Diimex
South Australia Police said a teenager was treated by paramedics at the Adelaide festival just before 5pm.

He was taken to Royal Adelaide Hospital, but later died.

“The initial investigation indicates the man had consumed an illicit drug and was in possession of a number of pills,” a police statement said. Pills were found on the man before he was taken to hospital.

The other man, in a critical condition in hospital, is also suspected of taking illegal drugs.

“It appears as though he also consumed an illicit substance and he remains in a critical condition in hospital,’’ a police spokesman said.

SA police released images of orange pills stamped with a dollar sign, which they say “may be related” to the death.

Images appeared on social media showing a toilet wash basin filled with condoms used to smuggle drugs into the music festival.

In a statement on their Facebook page, Stereosonic organisers said they were “devastated to hear of another loss to drugs”.

“We are imploring people to see the dangers of the situation, enjoy the day and please be safe,” the statement said.

Of the three people taken to hospital at yesterday’s Melbourne event, one was after an assault and two others were for “medical issues”.

A Geelong woman banned from yesterday’s event after being caught holding pills told the Sunday Herald Sun she had agreed to hold five “upper” pills for her friend, who was a lawyer, and for whom she had offered to be the designated driver.

She said she hid them in a container of mints and a sniffer dog had singled her out at the gate.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/la...n/news-story/a3c7e47abf6d6c0e6704ccca862960bd

 

[spacejunk]

Fuck, this is horrible. My condolences to any of this guy's friends and family.

I'm wondering if there is any small effort we can make - as BL's australian drug discussion thread - regarding harm reduction, with the current situation in mind, leading into a summer festival season that has begun so tragically.

I would really appreciate some imput on this one.

Not a pill user myself, but i'm hearing that really strong pills are doing the rounds now, following a drought that means a younger crew might have missed a lot of the wisdom of previous generations of bluelighters (and mdma users generally).

This is really the sort of thing BL is here for, and with an apparent new burst of strong mdma pills, i get the impression that we must get back to our roots somewhat, and maybe reiterate a bunch of relevant festival safety tips - with the current context (presumably a lot of young people who aren't as experienced or familiar with MDMA taking large [?] doses at events).

Two deaths in two weekends is alarming and very sad.
If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know... It might be worth starting a thread about, as so much of the discussion has moved on from "pill safety 101" in ausdd in recent years.

 

[Yeetbeat]

From everything I've read, overdosing on actual MDMA is exceptionally unlikely given the dosage required (over a gram). When MDMA is actually at play, it's more often dehydration and/or combining with other drugs (like alcohol leading to further dehydration) to cause damage.

The pills this guy supposedly took were warned to contain PMA/PMMA recently.


He's a clown for downing either way too fkn much (unlikely) or downing a pill of unknown content.

We NEED drug testing inside festivals, and any selfish piece of shit to take a determined stance against it is merely one step behind the dodgy cunts selling the PMA pills.

 

[spacejunk]

Harm reduction can make all the difference when people are taking these unregulated drugs on really hot summer days at dance festivals.
Lets not get into victim-blaming here...

I'm just wondering if there is some kind of HR recap we could have for what has been accurately described as one of the most dangerous summers for australian drug users in history.
Testing is important, as is not taking too much at once - along with a host of other things such as staying hydrated (but not overhydrated), keeping as cool as possible - and so on.

I'm just wondering aloud, really - is this information still easily available, or has the MDMA drought - followed by the current (apparent) glut meant that a lot of the younger crew, or folks that have never had "real pills" before missed some of this Ecstasy HR 101 stuff that BL was founded upon?
(I'm talking specifically, but not exclusively, about Australian Drug Discussion)

Not every pill user (or friend of pill users) has the months and years required to acquain themselves with all of bluelight/pillreports' available info.

Obviously we need better legislation to allow pills and other drugs to be tested both at events and in other ways
- but is there anything more we can do to help spread safety messages, from this end?

 

[Flynnal]

PMMA is dangerous shit. I don't understand why anyone would even hand that stuff to anyone!

We need an open book because the stuff that people are getting is so dangerous. There's no way to test it, because of laws, and people are being put at huge risk. The government needs to be taken to task for this because let's face it, they are wholly responsible for this shit.

 

[Mysterie]

if any of my friends are getting pills i tell them about pillreports and get them to look it up, or i'll look it up for them.

most people i know don't take enough e to own a testing kit, or are ignorant/dont care.

i think there is still a lot of people who don't know what the consequences can be from getting a bad pill and taking it. or are too ignorant to research and take what they get on face value. it honestly astonishes me that people will put things in their body without knowing what is in it.

i too wish there was something i could do in order to help get the harm reduction message across and help turn around whatever legislation that stops things like dancesafe pill testing booths being at festivals. baby boomers who have no clue and are anti-drugs can get fukkd.

 

[Verybuffed]

The pills this guy supposedly took were warned to contain PMA/PMMA recently.


He's a clown for downing either way too fkn much (unlikely) or downing a pill of unknown content.

We NEED drug testing inside festivals, and any selfish piece of shit to take a determined stance against it is merely one step behind the dodgy cunts selling the PMA pills.

Another article said that he found a bag of the pills at the event and his friends and him took some.

We had pill testing at events under Rave Safe. Dance Wize in VIC still do it.

 

[Yeetbeat]

If that's also true, definitely an unfortunate silly decision on their part

 

[SixBuckets]

From everything I've read, overdosing on actual MDMA is exceptionally unlikely given the dosage required (over a gram). When MDMA is actually at play, it's more often dehydration and/or combining with other drugs (like alcohol leading to further dehydration) to cause damage.

The pills this guy supposedly took were warned to contain PMA/PMMA recently.


He's a clown for downing either way too fkn much (unlikely) or downing a pill of unknown content.

We NEED drug testing inside festivals, and any selfish piece of shit to take a determined stance against it is merely one step behind the dodgy cunts selling the PMA pills.

I'm not sure about that. The police reports in South Australia only cover pills that they've seized, but literally every single pill confiscated by SA police in the last quarter contained MDMA.

I feel it's dangerous to put the message that "MDMA means you won't OD", when it's entirely possible to OD on MDMA or to die on an otherwise tolerable dose if you overheat or happen to get a pill that's mixed with the wrong other drugs.

It's nice to pretend that we all know too much to ever be at risk of overdose, but I'm afraid that attitude just doesn't reflect reality under prohibition.

 

[Yeetbeat]

Well given the LD50 for MDMA in humans is speculated at 10-20mg/kg, equating to ~1200mg for myself as an almost-80kg male @ 15mg/kg, that's where I'm coming from. When these statistics are thrown around, personally I do NOT count complications as an overdose, even if it's from a high dose. Given the way these statistics are used by the average idiot hellbent on ensuring nobody ever gets to taste "drugz" in their lifetime, I personally define a death from overdose as one specifically caused by an excessive amount of the substance itself - ie acute toxicity, and not hyperthermia/dehydration as a result of bombing 500mg and neglecting to drink water.

Some people go into anaphylactic shock when they come into contact with peanuts, but that doesn't make peanuts unsafe (yes I know that's a TERRIBLE analogy, but I'm sure you see what I mean).

Responsible use won't see you overdose on MDMA. That means you understand MDMA's effects, tested your shit, and you know exactly how much you're taking (and that it's not excessive). While this isn't based on anything factual, I'm fairly confident in loosely claiming there's as much chance of someone dying from a single normal dose of tested MDMA as there is of discovering you're allergic shellfish (having never eaten them before).


Keyword: responsible

 

[Mysterie]

I'm not sure about that. The police reports in South Australia only cover pills that they've seized, but literally every single pill confiscated by SA police in the last quarter contained MDMA.

source? i have a hard time believing that.

 

[SixBuckets]

source? i have a hard time believing that.

I had a hard time believing it, too, so I confirmed it with one of the harm reduction staff members who receives the report from SAPOL. He said they had a hard time believing it to, as it was completely unprecedented, but that's what the data said. If only the police were a little more transparent with their policing and seizure strategies - I feel like this data could tell us some really interesting stuff about the SA and larger Australian markets atm, if we had a little more information.