The "Drugs in Dance Music" panel includes Stefanie Jones, Maren Steiner, Patt Ochoa, Kennedy Jones, Kevin Kerslake, Dede Goldsmith and Mark Lawrence. (Photo credit: DVS, aLIVE Coverage; ADI, Adi Adinayev)
REPORTING FROM LAS VEGAS — Maren Steiner, director of health and safety at Insomniac, shared the practical approaches her medical services use to combat misinformation and any hesitation to seek help with substance abuse at events.
At Electric Daisy Carnival specifically, Steiner called Insomniac’s sharing of information to combat false assumptions “aggressive.” While attendees will worry about not having medical insurance, having their parents called, or being removed from the event, Steiner stressed that all medical treatment on site is free. She also shared that the fear of parents being called or people being kicked out of the festival was similarly unfounded.
A new EDC app also helped by reminding festivalgoers to stay hydrated during the event, while also keeping track of trends within the crowd. For example, Steiner said that if the medical center is seeing an increase in dehydration cases they will increase the message to pick up the free-of-charge water located around the venue.
Steiner said that even though Insomniac’s medical help “is available, it’s nonjudgmental,” things are “not always like that everywhere.”
Steiner's comments came as part of a panel on Drugs in Dance Music: It's time for the Industry to Act" at the EDMBiz conference June 15 here.
Having standardized rules or “a framework from the federal level” Steiner said would be extremely helpful. With the language included in the 2003 RAVE Act, H.R. 718 which seeks to keep individuals from enabling or profiting from any space for the purpose of distributing controlled substances, Steiner said that promoters are sometimes afraid to provide harm-reduction measures like on-site education and ample, free water to keep attendees hydrated.
After losing her daughter Shelley to MDMA in 2013, Dede Goldsmith, youth advocate and president of Protect Our Youth, Inc., is trying to do just that by changing the the U.S. RAVE Act. According to Goldsmith the law has caused organizers and venue-owners alike to shy away from offering information about drug use which exacerbates the situation through ignorance and faulty peer-to-peer education.
For Goldsmith, awareness will only foster “harm reduction, including on-site drug education and awareness for people like Shelley, who may have gotten all the information that they thought they needed from anecdotal stories from friends and had used the drug without any bad consequences so that they understand that it can cause different reactions in different people.”
She called on artists and attendees alike to make a point of asking promoters and venues what their harm-reduction efforts are point-blank.
Goldsmith named Dada Life, the DJ duo her daughter went to see the night she died as an entity that would do well to ask promoters, “What are your harm-reduction measures to educate kids about drugs?” Goldsmith said. “Not that they won’t come if they don’t have any, but if that’s their first question, (and) every performer does the same thing, it’s going to raise consciousness.”
Event-goers can also empower the message by asking about harm-reduction before attending shows and festivals as well.
“If you as consumers say, ‘What are your harm-reduction efforts?’ it’s going to have an effect,” Goldsmith said. Signing the RAVE Act petition which she said has over 14,000 signatures now, will also deliver a strong message to legislators. If the number of signatures gets to be over 50,000, Goldsmith said, “it will be hard to ignore.”
Stefanie Jones, director of audience development at the Drug Policy Alliance, added to Steiner’s point by sharing that her organization and others like DanceSafe promote education and political change. Jones shared that she wants Vice President Joe Biden to fix the RAVE Act by using his influence during his last summer in office to get “the DOJ to offer a clarification so that people like Maren and other festival producers can go ahead and do these progressive things, to offer drug education, to offer other services to keep people informed and safe.”
The panel also discussed efforts to offer alternatives to drug use at events. Patt Ochoa, co-director of the nonprofit Harmonium, has worked with Pasquale Rotella through Insomniac to create Consciousness Group which facilitates sober spaces at shows and festivals.
Ochoa shared that people are usually surprised that these environments exist at music events.
“Nine times out of 10 their reaction will be, ‘You’re sober? You can do that here?’” she said.
Moderator Mark Lawrence, CEO of the Association for Electronic Music, spoke to a “legacy that we want to leave, not what we are leaving.” Lawrence read an account of a friend who attended the Wild Life Festival which said that, “Disturbed doesn’t quite cut what I felt yesterday, looking around at teenagers as young as 13 without parents, without a responsible adult at their side, off their heads on MDMA or coke. It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t ok, it wasn’t acceptable and it wasn’t cool.”
As sobering and tragic as the message was, Lawrence still saw much to value behind the ugliness.
“I just think that this scene is worth more than that,” Lawrence said. “I think we created something amazing in the late 80s and early 90s, and I think we all need to step up and make sure that what we created is in place today.”
Interviewed for this article: Dede Goldsmith, (276) 628-9540; Stefanie Jones, (213) 382-6400; Mark Lawrence, 44 (0) 7949 450007; Patt Ochoa, (949) 637-5499; Maren Steiner, (323) 874-7020.