Defqon.1, one of the premiere festivals for hardstyle music, suffered a huge blow this past Saturday as reports have surfaced indicating that a 23-year-old man has died from a drug related incident and at least another 14 others were carried away to the hospital due to drug overdoses. Amongst the 18,000 in attendance, another 84 were detained by police officers for drug related charges, specifically for possession of illegal substances that one inspector noted as a “buffet of party drugs”:
“There were such a vast variety of drugs at the festival yesterday we can’t link them. We saw things that were reported as magic mushrooms, cannabis, amphetamines, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, GHB – this is what people were saying it was.”
Although the police presence was strong and that these catastrophes could have been avoided, police said there was nothing more they could have done to prevent people taking illicit substances despite the presence of more than 100 officers.
“People are quite inventive on how they defeat police and security methods so it doesn’t really matter [what we do]”
One attendee, Adam Watson, 22, said he wasn’t surprised whatsoever by the incident, claiming that this was bound to happen eventually. He also claimed that the death was indirectly caused by the high cost of alcohol, which ultimately played in a role in the large consumption of illicit drugs:
“It doesn’t surprise me at all. People were out of control in there, the festival gets worse and worse every year. Honestly, I put it down to the amount it costs to drink inside of festivals. I think that’s a massive factor for some people.”
The 23-year-old Victorian man was taken to a medical tent around midday where his condition quickly deteriorated and he suffered several seizures. He was quickly taken to the Nepean Hospital where he suffered several more cardiac arrests before he was pronounced dead at about 10:30 pm.
-via smh
