Raves, music festivals, and weed events often include weekends filled with good food, righteous tunes, and more. What people do in the “more” category is up to them, but a recent survey reveals for many, “more” means drugs.
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Innerbody surveyed 900 people who plan to attend a music festival this season and learned a lot. The questions gathered intel on how people get their festival drugs, their experiences, and which substances are most popular. Over half of the respondents were Millennials, 37 percent were Gen X, and 9 percent were Gen Z.
What drugs are people doing at music festivals?
Unshockingly, cannabis is the most common drug people plan on consuming at festivals this summer. According to the data, 65 percent of people plan to consume cannabis at an upcoming festival, followed by 46 percent expecting to do cocaine. Psychedelics like magic mushrooms, LSD, and DMT were lumped together coming in third with 26 percent of festival goers looking to trip at the event. The next was MDMA and ketamine, almost tied with just under 20 percent of people hoping to take some at their chosen party.
The survey didn’t just ask about the type of drugs it gauged whether people were safe when purchasing and experiencing the compounds. A majority of people tested their drugs at festivals and plan to do the same this season–a crucial step as fentanyl makes its way into more party favors. Over two-thirds of respondents are testing their drugs at festivals, a 13 percent improvement from last year’s results.
As for downtrends, more people are purchasing the drugs at the venue over bringing them in. This may speak to heightened security or the age groups surveyed. The study authors posit that Millennials may be more interested in purchasing drugs at a festival rather than buy them before arriving, but there’s little else supporting that assessment.
Despite more people testing their drugs, survey results suggest that there is harm reduction work left to be done. Over half of respondents had a negative experience with drugs at a festival in the last year. The worst complications people experienced were dehydration, heat stroke, and/or a bad trip.
Additionally, people reported getting into risky behavior like unsafe driving or casual sex. These not-so-shocking revelations display the ongoing risk associated with drug use and the pain points where harm reduction strategies can be implemented.
While little of this information is surprising, it is good to understand how community efforts should grow alongside societal interest in drugs. With more education and specialists on-site at festivals, everyone might have a banger time–drugs or not.
