WATCH ABOVE: The organizers of Nova Scotia’s Evolve festival suggested a controversial new way to reduce the risk of overdose, but the idea didn’t go over as well as planned. Ross Lord explains.
Nova Scotia’s popular Evolve Festival wanted to try something new this year — drug testing. It wasn’t to see whether festival-goers are high, it was to make sure drugs aren’t tainted with toxic ingredients and to eliminate bad drugs from the concert.
But Evolve organizers’ best intentions were met with some opposition and the festival’s insurance underwriter “pulled out” just days before the start of the festival, getting underway Thursday in Antigonish, about two hours northeast of Halifax.
Evolve producer Jonas Colter told Global News he tried to secure liability insurance that would allow the festival to offer drug testing at the three-day music event.
But he confirmed to Global News late Thursday afternoon he had to pull the plans in order to keep this year’s festival going.
“You can’t cancel Evolve,” he said. “For people, this is bigger and better than their birthdays and Christmas combined. People have been waiting all year.”
He said the drug test kits could have helped attendees avoid “drugs that could see them sent to hospital or maybe even a worse tragedy.”
The kits would have been available at the concert site for anyone who wished to identify drugs and check the quality of the substances.
There were three people taken to hospital in ambulances during last year’s Evolve festival because of drug overdoses. But the situation at other festivals has been worse. At Veld, in Toronto, two people died after taking drugs last year and another 13 were sent to hospital.
Colter said he contacted the organizers of other festivals over the past year and learned that “being proactive at festivals” has helped keep spectators from overdosing or suffering “traumatic effects.”
The kits Evolve intended to use were similar to what was introduced at British Columbia’s Shambhala Festival after a man died of an illegal drug and prescription drug overdose in 2012.
Tests can uncover drugs that aren’t what they’re sold as, in some cases turning out to be substances such as bath salts, crystal meth or even unknown compounds, Colter explained
Although Evolve cooperates with the RCMP, Mounties didn’t condone the free drug testing.
“We want people to go out and enjoy themsleves, but the use of illegal drugs will not… be tolerated,” RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Alain Leblanc told Global News.
Drug testing wasn’t the only effort being made to ensure the safety of attendees at Evolve, or other festivals across Canada, Colter said.
He said safety concerns include heat exposure (Evolve has free sunscreen at the ready), unsafe sex (free condoms, too), ear damage and motor vehicle accidents.
Colter told Global News the festival will attempt to bring drug testing to the Evolve Festival next year, but “with the help of lawyers.”
Evolve has been held in Antigonish since 2000.
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