Lost Paradise festival-goers boast about taking drugs less than 24-hours after suspected drug related death
Revellers at Lost Paradise boasted about taking drugs less than 24 hours after a man died on Saturday. Joshua Tam, 22, was the fourth young festival-goer killed by suspected party drugs since September.
NSW
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Revellers continued to party and take drugs yesterday just hours after a young man died and two others were hospitalised at a music festival on the Central Coast.
Police believe Joshua Tam, 22, mixed MDMA tablets and a large amount of alcohol when he and two friends became ill about 6pm on Saturday night at the Lost Paradise festival in Glenworth Valley.
His is the fourth death at a music festival in NSW since September and comes despite Premier Gladys Berejiklian introducing new laws after the first two fatalities.
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However, police still found drugs on 25 per cent of the people searched on the first day of Lost Paradise, which is attended by 11,000 partygoers over three days.
On Saturday night Mr Tam and his friends went to a medical tent staffed by NSW Ambulance and were rushed to nearby Gosford Hospital but the Queenslander was dead just two hours later.
“One of his friends has the unfortunate experience of attending Gosford Hospital to identify his deceased friend,” Brisbane Waters Police District Commander Acting Superintendent Rod Peet said.
Despite Mr Tam’s death partygoers approached by The Daily Telegraph yesterday were still openly taking drugs.
“I’ve just dropped some caps,” one 20-year-old from Sydney’s north said.
Around him young people were sprawled over the grass, drinking or passed out near the thousands of tents which packed Glenworth Valley.
A teenage girl from Hornsby said that she had “snuck a bunch” of drugs into the festival by hiding them in a tub of Vicks VapoRub while another young woman said festival goers were taking MDMA, cocaine and cannabis despite tight security measures.
“There’s a lot of coke and weed … people do it with their friends to keep them safe,” she said.
And she said Mr Tam’s death had not put her off partying into the new year: “I’m still in the mood … it’s everywhere.”
The day before Lost Paradise began NSW government funded charity DanceWize warned festival goers of a “mystery substance” that has been “linked to the hospitalisation of users experiencing psychotic symptoms”.
Yesterday DanceWize boss Mary Herrod said people were “taking drugs everywhere” and that she had teams roving around “catching people before they get really sick”.
Organisers of the Falls Music Festival, which is held at locations across Australia including Byron Bay, also posted a warning about “a dangerous orange pill”. “One pill can kill,” it warned.
Mr Tam, from the Brisbane suburb of Toowong, is the fourth person to die after taking drugs at music festivals in NSW this year, sparking a debate on whether pill testing should be introduced.
Premier Ms Berejiklian appointed an expert panel to provide advice following the deaths of two young people — Joseph Pham and Diana Nguyen — at the Defqon. 1 music festival in Penrith in September.
“I am devastated to hear another life has been lost at a music festival,” she said yesterday. “We want people to enjoy themselves at music festivals and concerts but we also want them to be safe.
“That is why we moved quickly to put in place a range of reforms … including much tougher penalties for the criminals who sell drugs at these events.”
Those include laws where drug dealers can be jailed for 25 years if people who buy from them die as a result.
Despite the Premier being strongly against pill testing the state’s newly appointed Ice Commissioner Professor Daniel Howard said yesterday he was “keeping an open mind” on the issue.
And Labor leader Michael Daley pledged to convene a drug summit because “pill testing should not be off the table.
“Just saying no is not the answer,” he said.
Ted Noffs Foundation CEO Matt Noffs said: “This doesn’t need to be the summer of festival deaths. We have doctors and drug treatment experts standing by to make live music and festivals safer for our kids with pill testing.”
Lost Paradise organisers issued a statement saying it was “a strictly drug-free event that is about celebrating life, love and nature in a fun, safe and welcoming environment”.