Emer McLysaght: Testing of drugs at Electric Picnic is a positive step, but who will sacrifice their stash?

At Forbidden Fruit Festival in the grounds of Royal Hospital Kilmainham a few years ago, a “surrender your drugs” bin located just outside the entrance was generating a lot of activity. It wasn’t that there was a whole lot of surrendering going on, though, it was more pointing and skitting and laughing and photo ops. I indulged in a photo shoot myself, directing my pal to pretend she was peering inside for any forbidden fruits to load up on, and she hammed it up nicely. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much in the bin beyond a few empty cans and bits of rubbish. The idea that someone bringing drugs either to sell or consume would voluntarily just throw them away seemed pie-in-the-sky, and besides that, the bin was prominently located in full view of gardaí and security staff.

At Electric Picnic this weekend, the HSE is going a step further by providing drug surrender points, and then testing substances that are surrendered to evaluate what’s in them. Any alarming findings will then be circulated on the festival site and on social media to warn any would-be users of the dangers. News at Electric Picnic spreads surprisingly quickly, despite dodgy phone signal and essentially being cut off from the outside world for a long weekend. In 2013 there was a warning about avoiding “blue ghost” ecstasy pills following the death of a man on site, and, having attended Electric Picnic on and off since 2005, I had witnessed similar warnings over the years. One year, as rumours circulated about “dodgy” pills, one of our group volunteered themselves as kind of a lab rat. They took half a pill, and others joined only when there seemed to be no unexpected ill-effects.

The HSE has stressed that the surrender and testing points are part of a harm-reduction strategy and won’t be subject to Garda interference

The problem with the HSE’s drug-testing facility at Electric Picnic is that it isn’t a lab rat. Anyone who does decide to surrender drugs — and I’m finding it hard to believe many will — won’t know straight away if any substances they hold on to are safe. People are much more likely to just take their chances. It is a step in the right direction, though, and the messaging may be useful. Planting an idea in somebody’s head that taking drugs might be dangerous may act as a deterrent, but straightforward on-the-spot drug testing would be a safer option. The HSE has stressed that the surrender and testing points are part of a harm-reduction strategy and won’t be subject to Garda interference, obviously hoping to quell the jokes that immediately arose about plain clothes detectives hovering around the surrender bin in bucket hats and smiley face tie-die, waiting to pounce. The HSE is also keen to emphasise that this isn’t a drug amnesty, and anyone found in possession elsewhere on the site is subject to the rule of law.

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[ Electric Picnic: Warning issued about double strength ecstasy at festival ]

[ Fontaines DC at Electric Picnic: Fans roar about the ‘gall of Fine Gael and the fail of Fianna Fáil’ ]

As long as the current legislation stands in Ireland, there will never be a drug amnesty at a music festival or anywhere else. Decriminalisation of drugs intended for personal use would go some way to allowing for more safety around substance use and abuse. Apart from avoiding potential fatalities at events such as Electric Picnic, decriminalisation would vitally serve the most vulnerable drug users in society. Drug use should be viewed through a social and health lens rather than a criminal one. “Wars on drugs” are rarely successful, and punitive measures only lead to stigma and pushing substance use further underground.

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People want to have their fun and do their Saturday evening cocaine without guilt

The image of a glittered-up girlie spinning around at Tame Impala this weekend mildly off her head is a far cry from the reality of the vicious crime that controls the bulk of drugs that come into this country. Attempting to shame middle-class users by pointing to the supply chain link often falls on deaf ears. People want to have their fun and do their Saturday evening cocaine without guilt. In an ideal world, decriminalisation would reach a point where organised crime fuelled by the drug trade would cease to exist, because the Saturday night cocaine, or the festival ketamine, or the fentanyl-laced heroin, or the counterfeit Xanax — they’re not going anywhere.

I’m not at Electric Picnic this weekend. After a long and varied music festival career, an extremely damp All Together Now in 2019 convinced me that maybe I had had enough. I don’t know if it was the heavy machinery passing mere feet from my head as I lay in my tent at 4am, or the stinking portaloos in my direct eye line as I zipped open my door, but I decided that it was probably time to hang up my rain poncho. Maybe I’ll have a renaissance when I’m an aul’ wan, able to afford a camper van and less likely to take a 7am swig of vodka foolishly decanted into bottle clearly marked “water”. I hope that by that time, if I decide to indulge in what is now a forbidden substance, I’ll be doing it with complete, medically approved confidence and no fear of criminality.