More Than 20 Treated For Drug Overdose At Melbourne Electronic Music Festival

Over the weekend, paramedics tended to dozens of festival goers who had allegedly overdosed on synthetic drugs.

The Guardian reports ambulance officers treated 30 people who attended the Electric Parade Music festival. Of that group, 25 were admitted to hospital after taking what was believed to be a synthetic drug dubbed GHB.

Ambulance Victoria's state health commander Paul Holman had described the event as being “awash with drugs”. According to Holman, it was the highest number of overdoses seen at a music festival for some time. Given the unprecedented amount of overdoses, he said it was lucky no one had died.

GHB is categorized as a synthetic drug, and a dangerous one at that. It’s known to cause people to become unconscious, slows the heart rate and can induce seizures. “It’s frustrating that so many people were prepared to risk their lives by taking dangerous drugs,” Holman expressed.

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The heavy presence of illicit drugs has—yet again—trigged calls for mandatory drug testing services to be made available at festivals. Speaking to 9News, one attendee said: “In Holland, we can go to the chemist and test our drugs… they will give you the result and tell you if [the drugs] are safe or not.”

However, state political figures still say they have no plans to introduce any form of drug testing.

“What we need to do is ramp up our harm reduction efforts,” responded Mental Health Minister Martin Foley.

Leader of the Greens Richard Di Natale has previously spoken out about the need to introduce radical changes to current policies, which adopt a "war on drugs" stance. You can read about the Greens party's proposition here.

Breaking: Paramedics have treated at least 20 people for "substance abuse" at Electric Parade event at Sidney Myer Music Bowl @theheraldsun pic.twitter.com/2ECllJYQ8j

— Brianna Travers (@briannatravers) 18 February 2017

Police arrested 40 people at the event, including one man who had been charged and reprimanded overnight for possessing a banquet of drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine, MDMA, LSD, ketamine and hash.

Photo: Instagram (@miss.kirsty.bee and @railed_jzz30)