Drug checking at an electronic dance music festival during the public health overdose emergency in British Columbia

Abstract

Setting Shambhala is a 5-day electronic dance music (EDM) festival held in rural British Columbia that annually hosts between 15,000 and 18,000 people on a 500-acre ranch. The AIDS Network Outreach & Support Society (ANKORS) has provided harm reduction services throughout the duration of the festival since 2003, including point-of-care drug checking, which allows realtime testing of illicit substances to assess their composition. Drug checking results are provided directly to clients and displayed in aggregate on a screen for all attendees to see. Intervention In 2017, ANKORS added fentanyl checking to their repertoire of drug checking technologies for festivalgoers. Volunteers used a brief survey to collect information on what clients expected the samples to contain. Volunteers carried out drug checks and subsequently logged test results. ANKORS provided an amnesty bin at the tent for clients who chose to discard their substances. Outcomes Of the 2683 surveys, 2387 included data on both the client's belief and the actual test result. Clients were more likely to discard when the test result differed from their belief (5.16%) than when their belief was confirmed (0.69%). Discarding increased to 15.54% when the test could not clearly identify a substance and to 30.77% if the client did not have a prior belief of the substance. Of 1971 samples tested for fentanyl, 31 tested positive and 16.13% of clients discarded compared to 2.63% in the negative group. Implications Drug checking services appeal to festivalgoers who, when faced with uncertainty, may discard their substances. This innovative harm reduction service allows for a personalized risk discussion, potentially reaching others via word-of-mouth and early warning systems. Résumé Contexte Shambhala est un festival de musique électronique qui se déroule sur cinq jours dans un ranch de 500 acres en campagne britanno-colombienne et qui accueille de 15 000 à 18 000 personnes. L'AIDS Network Outreach & Support Society (ANKORS) offre des services de réduction des méfaits pour toute la durée du festival depuis 2003, notamment sous forme d'analyses en temps réel de la composition de substances illicites dans des points de service. Les résultats sont remis directement aux clients et affichés sous leur forme brute dans un tableau général que peuvent voir tous les festivaliers.

Risk intentions following pill test scenarios are predicted by MDMA use history and sensation seeking: A quantitative field study at an Australian music festival

“…While prior research has established that pill testing services are endorsed by people who have used MDMA in Australia and overseas , few studies have reported subsequent substance‐using decisions of MDMA users following a pill test result in a festival environment . Therefore, the present study offers an important contribution to a body of research supporting pill testing as a form of harm reduction at music festivals.…”

Drug safety testing, disposals and dealing in an English field: Exploring the operational and behavioural outcomes of the UK’s first onsite ‘drug checking’ service

“…Variations in services relate to the primary purpose of the testing; who conducts the analyses and how; the range of quantitative or qualitative analytical methods used; who disseminates test results and how; where testing is located (such as mobile/ event-based or fixed site/ community-based); whether test results go directly to users or via an intermediary; and the varying levels of engagement and support from other stakeholder groups. At the Canadian Shambhala festival, for example, test results are not shared directly between the testing service and other onsite agencies such as police (Michelow and Dowden, 2015). By comparison, Multi Agency Safety Testing (MAST), the term coined by the author for the model of drug safety testing piloted in the UK (Measham, 2016), is distinctive in that firstly, it foregrounds the sharing of test results with onsite and offsite stakeholders with the agreed aim of reducing drug-related harm and secondly, test results are delivered by healthcare staff embedded in brief interventions (Fisher and Measham, 2018).…”

City checking: Piloting the UK's first community‐based drug safety testing (drug checking) service in 2 city centres

“…At micro–level, disposal of unwanted substances has been utilised as a key indicator of impact on individual service users, in part due to the relative ease of measuring disposals by comparison with other outcomes, the potential for comparison between testing services, and the indisputable benefit (apparent even to critics) of taking substances of concern out of circulation. Testing services worldwide report that a significant proportion of service users intend not to take further substances in their possession after service delivery, particularly if test results suggest that contents were adulterated, missold or otherwise other than expected …”

“…worldwide report that a significant proportion of service users intend not to take further substances in their possession after service delivery, particularly if test results suggest that contents were adulterated, missold or otherwise other than expected. [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] Drug safety testing disposal rates vary widely depending on composition profiles and adulteration rates identified by forensic analyses, with a review 33 suggesting that disposal rates for testing services ranged from 4-76% and subsequent studies suggesting that the range is even wider. Furthermore, distinctions have been made between intended disposals, 34,35 actual disposals to a testing service, 29 and verified disposals to an external agency.…”