Nuffs-Nuff

(The views of the author are not nesseccarily the views of the ADS)

Victoria Police were caught with their pants down in January, so much so they had to take their own webpage down! I'm referring to the Rainbow Serpent 'fiasco' and this (now non-existent) webpage: VicPol Rainbow Crime Stats. I laughed so hard, I just had to write an article about it!

Thanks to The Courier Mail, who happily published the "Police hit out at Rainbow Serpent" story, the community was able to do some of the math for themselves (note the comments section). Although a little misguided, it's still pretty obvious to everyone that, even without VicPol's stats, the numbers just don't add up to shutting RSF down.

Let's examine these numbers objectively, with the black and white (hit-rate) view of people generally engaging in illegal activities and putting lives at risk.

According to The Courier Mail and ABC News articles, there were 0 deaths, 0 ODs, 4 assaults, 3 thefts, 40 DUIs and 3 busts which resulted in 0.31% RSF attendees (one in 320) being fined. Where as, to borrow an example, Grand Final weekend figures add up close to 3.8% of the general population (one in 27) being fined and 'who knows' how many deaths/assaults/thefts.

War on Raves

In late 2014, Superintendent Mark Walton, commander of the Sydney City Command, declared war on raves stating "It does not matter what location they're held in, there's no doubt that the nature of the entertainment is intrinsically linked to [that] drug use".

However, the Ecstasy and Related Drugs Reporting System figures do not support Mr Walton's arguement. Their study of ecstacy-users' consumption at public venues reveals 40% used at nightclubs, 15% used at live band venues, 7% used at pubs, 5% used at raves and 3% used while doing other public activities. These numbers indicate ecstasy consumption occurs 95% more frequently elsewhere (ie: not at raves).

It can be said, the 5% do who consume at raves (being the typical classification of RSF) make up less than 0.31% of RSF attendees. This comparrison demonstrates a very low percentage of bingers aiming specifically for RSF. It also stands to reason, if the RSF community was encouraging, condoning or supplying drugs, or if the music genre played any role at all, their figures would be closer to the 5% range.

But, hey! Maybe it's just a matter of the Police are not very good at finding drugs at festivals. That's a fair enough call. Although, another previous study by the National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre, which reveals the majority of users said they 'scored' from a friends house, tends to suggest they're probably just looking in all the wrong places.

So as not to argue a moot point, let's move right along to the business of saving lives.

Life Data

According to the 2014 National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre figures, as many as 170 nation-wide deaths attributed to methamphetamine occurred during 2015 and we know five of them occurred at music festivals.

It is highly debatable whether all those festivals were 'raves', but to save arguement, let's just say all festival organisers are being held responsible for less than 3% of preventable drug fatalities in Australia. Tell me again, how many did RSF prevent this year?

And how many fatalities did Stereosonic, who certainly are welcomed back in 2016, prevent?

The figures for their Sydney event suggest (without any DUI or assault data) 0.75% drug-related activities (one in 134) were recorded, including one fatality. That's more than double RSF's supposedly 'high hit rate'!

Their Adelaide event (again without any DUI or assault data) comes in at a staggering 1.5%, including yet another fatality and 20 ODs, which is almost FIVE times higher hit-rate than RSF!

Missing Data

Interestingly enough, I couldn't find much data on the last Byron Bay BluesFest. One, single, off-topic report suggested 151 dug-related offenses from a crowd of 105,000 (0.14%). If we were able to include DUIs, medical and violence data these figures might be more comparable to RSF however, no data has been published directly. And why not? It is a music festival isn't it?

In fact, even the Stereosonic data was difficult to source, the figures fluctuated according to the media outlet reporting it. Mostly I found 'drug fatality in Adelaide - 60 busted in Melbourne', as if Adelaide data didn't really matter in the grand scheme.

Not a scrap of data anywhere for Tamworth Country Music Festival, even though it's quite obvious the data should measure around the same as the footy Grand Final weekend. No data reported anywhere for the some of the largest music festivals in Australia tends to suggest, and is supported by Superintendent Mark Walton, only one specific type of music festival is being nationally targeted and made a mockery of.

War on Drugs

The public focus has shifted left, right, up and down and many directions in between, it's all over the shop like a kleptomaniac!

Previous studies by NDARC found the majority of users reported 'that police activity had not made it more difficult for them to obtain drugs'. A decade later (and thousands of Police blitzes on music festivals) NDARC further reports all manner of methamphetamine are still 'easy to very easy' to obtain, the newest source being the internet.

We need to switch the social mentality back to caring for the health and safety all Australians, young or old. Binge-culture is killing people hell, west and crooked. Not festival organizers. Not Police. And certainly not the music.

Which raises the magic question on everyones lips, who is paying attention to and addressing the issues associated with music festivals?

Alcohol free events like RSF perhaps?

#festival #vic #police #drugs #ecstacy #waron #youthculture