Festival drug deaths rise as risks ignored

A 20-year-old man in Victoria is the latest person to die from a suspected drug overdose at a music festival.

Police at yesterday’s Field Day festival in Sydney. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

A 20-year-old man in Victoria is the latest person to die from a suspected drug overdose at a music festival, with his death revealed on the same day police arrested more than 100 revellers for alleged drug offences at a Sydney event.

The Mansfield man was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition on Saturday while attending the Beyond the Valley festival in Lardner, about 100km southeast of Melbourne.

He died yesterday morning. A report will be prepared for the ­coroner.

Police said while the circumstances of the man’s death were yet to be determined, it was not being treated as suspicious.

Before the man’s death, Assistant Police Commissioner Shane Patton said police conducted sniffer dog operations at the festival and charged six people with trafficking drugs and a number with drug possession.

“We continue to urge people, obviously, not to use drugs but, nonetheless, it’s the nature of these environments that that does occur,” he said.

“We understand that there were substances such as ecstasy, cocaine, MDMA taken there.”

Mr Patton said although he could not specifically say what the young man had taken, it didn’t matter what people thought they were taking, “it’s not safe”.

“Unless it’s medically prescribed, it’s not safe,” he said.

A Victorian government spokesman ruled out pill-testing at events. “Advice from Victoria Police tells us it can give people a false, and potentially fatal, sense of security about illicit drugs,” he said.

A massive police operation at Sydney’s Field Day festival also yielded more than 100 ­arrests for drug offences, after revellers failed to heed police warnings.

The New Year’s Day festival at Sydney’s The Domain attracted as many as 20,000 people partying from midday until 11pm.

A NSW Police spokeswoman said as of 5.30pm there had been 114 arrests for drug-­related offences.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Mark Walton said the festival was always “very strongly” policed, with uniformed and plain-clothed police and sniffer dogs.

“We all should be concerned about electronic music festivals,” he said. “There is a clear association with illicit drug use at those festivals and the worst outcomes are being seen at times.”

A 22-year-old Brisbane man died on Saturday after consuming an “unknown substance” at the Lost Paradise music festival on the NSW central coast.

Acting Superintendent Rod Peet said people used “sophisticated” tricks to smuggle drugs into the festival, which had been promoted as “drug free”.

He said people hid drugs in Vegemite jars with false compartments, aerosol containers and even inserted drugs into the stuffing of a barbecued chicken.

The organisers of the Falls Festival, a popular new year’s music event which travels to Victoria, NSW, Tasmania and Western Australia and has no link to ­Beyond the Valley, issued a safety warning about a “dangerous ­orange pill” in circulation around Australia over the weekend.

“There is no safe level of consumption — one pill can kill,” the warning read.

In a statement Falls Festival said it wanted to remind everyone of the potentially fatal risks that come with illicit substances ­regardless of pill variation.

“You do not know what is in them, how your body will react, there is no safe level of consumption,” the statement said.

Additional reporting: Sascha O’Sullivan