Festival deaths caused by mix of drugs in large quantities

A cocktail of drugs caused the deaths of two young people at a dance festival at Easter, a coronial inquest confirmed.

Ebony Greening.

A cocktail of drugs caused the deaths of two young people at a Queensland bush dance festival over the Easter long weekend, a coronial inquest confirmed.

Toxicology results showed both Ebony Greening, 22, and Dassarn Tarbutt, 24, had a potentially lethal concentration of MDMA in their system when they were found dead in their tents at the Rabbits Eats Lettuce Festival on April 20, near Warwick in southeast Queensland.

Several other drugs including ice, ketamine, heroin, sleeping drug Temazepam and psychedelic MDA were also identified.

Inside the pair’s tent, police found what was described at the time of the deaths as a “large quantity” of drugs and drug-­related paraphernalia. The coroner’s report confirmed the drugs to be heroin and amphetamine.

The young couple were found by other festivalgoers as they packed to leave the festival on Easter Monday. Time of death was not confirmed. The pair were last seen on the Saturday night.

The deaths are the first drug-related festival deaths in Queensland in over a decade. A recent NSW inquest into the drug-­related deaths of six young ­people at music festivals — Nathan Tran, 18, Alex Ross-King, 19, Joshua Tam, 22, Joseph Pham, 23, Diana Nguyen, 21, and Callum Brosnan, 19 — concluded last week. Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame will hand down her findings on November 8, ahead of the summer festival season.

Rabbits Eat Lettuce organiser Erik Lamir-Pike moved the event from Byron Bay to southeast Queensland after NSW police moved to block a similar event, Bohemian Beatfreaks, over safety concerns. Last November, a court heard that NSW police had “withdrawn support” for the festival but it was later approved, with a court ruling a “very, very significant additional policing presence” was needed at a cost of $105,000 to organisers.

Bohemian Beatfreaks was moved to Cherrabah Resort in Elbow Valley shortly after.

Southern Downs Regional Council allowed Rabbits Eat Lettuce to go ahead at the same site six weeks before Easter with may­or Tracy Dobie telling The Australian at the time council had passed all the appropriate checks.

Police laid more than 80 drug-related charges at Rabbits Eat Lettuce over five days, including 28 for the possession, four for supply and one for drug production.