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For decades, summer music festivals have been places where some people choose to use psychedelics and other drugs.
A research team is looking into how these events implement harm reduction and what can be learned from them.
Lead researcher Erika Dyck, a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a Canada Research Chair in the history of health and social justice, has spent the last two decades studying psychedelics.
Because music festivals are locations where these substances are more commonly used, they’re also where harm reduction strategies are often implemented, Dyck told CBC’s Saskatoon Morning.
“They are recreational spaces, but they are nonetheless still places where people look to care for each other and look to reduce harms.”
Kenneth Tupper, an adjunct professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, is part of the research team for the project.
He said drug checking practices started in Canada with music festivals.
“[It] sort of took off in Canada as part of the toxic drug crisis response around 2016. That was when it was declared a public health emergency in British Columbia,” Tupper said.
The British Columbia Centre on Substance Use implemented a new type of instrument, an FTIR spectrometer, to test drugs around 2017. Its portability made it ideal for use at festivals like Shambhala, Bass Coast and others, he said.
The Regina Exchange Folk Festival celebrated its first edition this month. Artistic director Zandra Kaszas said harm reduction and safety were key to preparations for the event.
“You don’t want to think that it’s ever going to happen, but we also wanted to be prepared for it,” Kaszas said.
Besides general safety measures like security, hydration stations and an ambulance on site, the Nēwo Yōtina Friendship Centre (NYFC) was at the festival with a naloxone station in case of overdoses.
Tupper said drug testing services can give people more certainty before they make decisions over drug consumption. Counseling for people to navigate what they experience can also be lifesaving, he said.
Regina’s Nēwo-Yōtina Friendship Centre will continue to allow users to consume drugs in a safe environment. It has been operating for three years under a temporary exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The Indigenous-led operation and Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon are now the only federally-approved sites in the province.
“I’ve sat with people who’ve been going through heavy experiences and helped them come to a place of help, [I] believe better than where they would have been otherwise. It was tremendously rewarding work.”
Dyck said the research project also aims to create a useful record of the strategies used at festivals.
“[We want] to help to create a bit of an archive of these experiences, because they aren’t typically kept in traditional archives, but they are useful information,” she said.
“We really think [they] should be part of the conversation going forward.”
