Earlier this year, there were reports of a massive drug crackdown at Splendour In The Grass – by the Saturday morning of the festival, police had already confiscated a kilo of illicit substances, more than twice the amount they had at the same time last year.
Last weekend saw a similar crackdown at Sydney’s Defqon.1, an offshoot of the famous Dutch hard dance festival. Music Feeds report that police made 83 drug arrests at the event, which was attended by around 20,000 punters on Saturday.
There were 200 officers on site, and a reported 372 people were searched, 83 of whom were found to be in possession of illicit drugs. Seven of these were charged with drug supply offenses, including one man who was allegedly found in possession of 250 pills.
Prior to the festival, there was a plea for police to keep sniffer dogs away from the site, after last year’s event, at which a 23-year-old man died of an overdose, supposedly panicking and taking three pills at once after seeing a dog squad.
Similar calls were made before Splendour this year – Art Vs Science member Daniel McNamee wrote a letter asking for sniffer dogs to be kept away in the name of harm reduction – but dog squad members were nonetheless present at Defqon.1.
An approximate 350 people received medical treatment at the festival, many due to heat-related illnesses.
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