The HSE Safer Nightlife Programme continued its harm reduction work at Electric Picnic and District X this summer, providing on-site ’back of house’ drug checking to identify extra risky batches of drugs while drug harm reduction teams provided drug interventions, support and harm reduction advice.
In total, over 176 drug samples were submitted from festival attendees across both events, helping to identify emerging drug trends and issue real-time public health alerts. Hundreds of interventions were provided each day at the two events, with over 28 hours of outreach provided.
At Electric Picnic, the strongest MDMA tablet ever recorded in Ireland was identified at 312mg, while some pills sold as MDMA contained none at all. The same batch of pills were then identified at the second event and found to contain over 314mg of MDMA. This led to the HSE issuing public health alerts at both events. The trajectory of this market could lead to increased issues in community and hospital settings.
Over the last four year, the Safer Nightlife Programme has seen an evolving MDMA market with pills, powders and crystals containing more MDMA than in the past. Second to MDMA, ketamine is commonly reported as a main drug of choice at festivals, which is currently a concern for health care providers due to the risk of dependency and urology issues associated with frequent and long-term use. A number of novel drugs were identified with the drug 2-CB noted as increasing in use.
Over the four year pilot period, the programme has issued real time alerts in relation to high-strength MDMA linked to medical emergencies, 3-CMC being sold as cocaine without people knowing, and cases of 100% pure cocaine - which is very rare but can lead to extreme medical situations or fatalities. Through back of house monitoring in community settings, the HSE has also alerted on synthetic opioids sold as heroin and benzodiazepines
The programme acknowledges that it is always safer not to use drugs but for those who choose to use, the HSE always encourage them to engage and to follow their practical steps to help reduce the harms and follow updates @drugs ie
According to Prof Eamon Keenan, National Clinical Lead, HSE Addiction Services, their advice always remains the same:
“It is always safer not to use drugs. For those who choose to, we always encourage them to engage with us when they arrive at the specific event, follow our practical steps to help reduce the harms.”