Dealers pushing ‘pure’ drugs at music festivals

Drug dealers are trading on the debate around pill-testing by offering ‘‘pure’’ drugs at music festivals.

A police officer helps a distressed girl as others queue at the entrance to the Rolling Loud Festival at Sydney’s Olympic Park yesterday. Picture: Damian Shaw

Drug dealers trading on the debate about pill testing smuggled what they said were test kits into a Sydney music festival in a bid to sell what they claimed were ‘‘pure’’ drugs.

The new tactic emerged as police swooped on eight dealers at two festivals in Sydney, arresting one 17-year-old allegedly carrying 579 drug capsules and $2075 cash at the Hardcore Til I Die festival at Sydney Olympic Park.

A neuroscience student from Adelaide was allegedly caught with 48 MDMA capsules at the same event.

Abbey Spurr, 19, was charged with the supply of a prohibited drug and told Parramatta Bail Court she was in Sydney for only five days to attend the festival and see friends and asked for bail so she could go back to her university neuroscience studies.

“I go to lectures in the evening after work,” Ms Spurr said.

A magistrate granted her bail on condition she report to police in Adelaide and return for her next court appearance.

Another 118 people were charged with drug possession.

At the Electric Gardens festival at Centennial Park, a 21-year-old from Sydney’s northern beaches told The Australian dealers were “walking around with a pill-testing kit” as a selling point.

Drug and alcohol testing at the Rainbow Serpent Festival in western Victoria.

The kit was a DIY colour test that can be bought online for $20 to $50. A powder sample of a drug is added to a solution that turns a distinctive dark purple in the presence of MDMA.

“I thought my pills were a dud from the first guy I was going to buy off but when the second dealer showed me a small test tube of a sample of his drugs that turned purple, I knew they were good and I trusted him,” the 21-year-old said.

Mitchell Bradley, 21, was allegedly caught with 33.83g of cocaine, some of it strapped to his body, when eastern suburbs Highway Patrol stopped the car he was in at Queens Park about 2.30pm on Saturday. Prosecutors at Parramatta Local Court said it was “pure luck” police caught Mr Bradley ­before he reached the gates to Electric Gardens and allegedly found further drugs stuffed in the car’s glovebox.

A man is taken away on a stretcher at Homebush.

He was charged with possessing a prohibited drug and supply.

Magistrate Carl Milovanovich refused bail for Mr Bradley, whose mother burst into tears in the courtroom.

Revellers at a third music festival, Rolling Loud, an R&B style event at Sydney Showground, lined up to be searched last night.

A woman in her 20s collapsed before the event began and was taken to hospital in a serious but stable condition and a teenager was the second reveller to be taken to hospital last night. Another young woman took a selfie with her phone as she was wheeled away on a stretcher by medics.

Masked festival goers wearing T-shirts bearing the image of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday.

It was unclear if any of the incidents were drug related.

The Australian attended three festivals on the weekend and found revellers did not appear to be fazed by the rising death toll at NSW festivals as drugs exchanged hands in conspicuous ways.

One man said bulk-buying MDMA pills meant he could get 10 for $150. “It’s so much cheaper,” he said. Another young man, bleeding from his mouth as he clenched and unclenched his jaw at Electric Gardens, said he hid his drugs in a cigarette packet. Festival toilet cleaners confirmed other revellers had used condoms to wrap their drugs and carry them in internally.

A man massages his friend at the Hardcore festival.

By 6pm the free water bottles were rationed for emergencies as volunteers prepared for the bombardment of unwell revellers, which they knew would get worse as the sun set.

A girl, visibly unwell and red in the face was being cooled by friends who rubbed iced water over her skin as the mercury soared to more than 30C.

The Australian found condoms and coffee grinds, items associated with drug concealment, in the bathroom of Rolling Loud.

NSW Health appointed extra medical staff at each event, including three critical-care doctors, a critical-care paramedic and four emergency nurses who worked alongside festival medical teams.

A spokesperson for NSW Health said it allowed them to get the 14 patients transported to hospital earlier, which led to the stabilisation of all patients on Saturday.