People have been cutting drugs for years. This is not a new concept, for people have long since been buying drugs riddled with ambiguity. That MDMA your dealer promised you as the most amazing roll could very well have been cut with methamphetamine, caffeine tablets or some weird looking glass he found on the floor. And yet, without a second thought, you continue to seek him out to spend your week’s wages on whatever is handed over by a guy known only on a first name basis.
Whether this is you or someone you might know, a lot of people play this game of chance on a regular basis. This problem has always existed within the drug community, but in recent years, with the advent of new and unregulated substances being produced on unprecedented levels, most drugs can now be easily replaced with a large number of psychoactive and potentially lethal substances.
America is losing the war on drugs faster than ever with a wildly unregulated market that has zero oversight when it comes to substance adulteration and underage distribution. Drug-related death and overdose have become increasingly commonplace at music festivals over the last couple of years, and it is a problem that does not seem to be slowing down. Bath salts and various other research chemicals have exploded on the scene, under the radar of most consumers. Many of these new drugs are produced to mimic existing popular drugs such as MDMA (also known as “Molly” or ecstasy), LSD, cocaine and even heroin, but with much deadlier consequences.
Despite stricter measures and attempts at regulation, not much is being accomplished in terms of solving the actual problem at hand. New laws are being passed every year banning these newer designer drugs, and yet every year more drugs are simply synthesized and packaged to take their place. One of the unfortunate consequences that the war on drugs has is that there is very little sympathy for those who do these drugs in first place. Everybody knows someone who partakes in some form of drug use, and for the most part, they live normal lives. Unfortunately, due to the way the issue is currently handled, there is this mentality created that all drug users are bad and deserve to be criminalized. If someone picks up something on the street that they didn't bargain for, the response would be "too bad, they shouldn't have been doing something illegal in the first place," instead of dealing with the actual problem at hand, which is the mass adulteration of drugs that is plaguing the drug community at large.
With music festival season in full swing, the number of people who have been hospitalized has only continued. Just this month at Sunset Festival in Tampa Florida, over 60 people were hospitalized with two dead. The festivals, while upping security and medical staff, only continue to ignore the fact that people will continue to seek out these substances regardless of legality. There are organizations such as DanceSafe and the BunkPolice whose goal is to educate people on responsible drug use and promote harm reduction but are banned from operating on site at Music Festivals on the premise of being a legal liability. So many young and uninformed individuals attend these festivals with the incentive of using substances, that it is wrong to keep up the status quo and just sweep the issue under the rug.
If you are someone who plans on purchasing any sort of illicit drug for recreational use, be proactive and buy a test kit. There are too many adulterants out today to simply ingest something without really knowing what's in that little baggie of yours. The fact that people are going to use drugs is not going to change anytime soon, but if we practice harm reduction perhaps we can be healthier in doing so.
