Survey reveals extent of music festival drug use

A criminologist has testified that festival-goers are mostly well-educated, white and work full-time.

A police sniffer dog in action AT THE Groovin the Moo festival earlier this year. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Four in every five Australian dance music festival goers had used the potentially lethal party drug MDMA while three out of every four had used cocaine in the past 12 months, the annual 2019 Global Drug Survey has revealed.

An Australian report on the survey findings — Australian music festival attendees: A national overview of demographics, drug use patterns, policing experiences and help-seeking behaviour — found 98.4 per cent of respondents reported using an illicit drug in the past year.

The report’s author, criminologist Associate Professor Caitlin Hughes, says the survey of 4391 people was the largest ever collected in Australia and flagged a clear pattern of drug use among dance music festival goers.

Giving evidence today at the inquest into six drug related deaths at NSW dance music festivals, Dr Hughes said the survey revealed music festival goers were mostly well educated, white and in full time jobs.

Despite the high level of illicit drug use, however, only six per cent had ever had a criminal conviction.

Dr Hughes, a senior research fellow at Australia’s National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, told the inquest the survey responses showed MDMA users consumed an average of 2 capsules, while cocaine use was around 0.5 per cent per person. Other popular drugs included LSD (38.1 per cent), cannabis (74 per cent) and magic mushrooms (24.8 per cent).

She said the survey also flagged the “perverse” impact of the use of drug detection dogs at music festivals. People, she said, were much less likely to seek medical help or assistance where drug dogs were present “either because of mistrust of police or fear of detection”.

It also increased the pressure for attendees buy their drugs once inside the festival, posing a “much greater public health risk”.

The inquest heard three in five dance music festival revellers reported having direct dealings with police sniffer dogs, while in NSW the incidence was much higher at close to four in every five attendees.

Almost every attendee drank alcohol — 95.6 per cent — while 22 per cent reported 10 drinks or more in one day.

Half of those surveyed attended music festivals once or twice a year with only 7.8 per cent identified as “hardcore” festival goers who attended more than six events a year.