 Thank you for coming to the are the party kids any safer yet session. We're gonna talk about the music industry and harm reduction here Whoo Thank you. Nice fun one for Friday afternoon before Friday evening. I Am Stephanie Jones. I work at the Drug Policy Alliance. I run a program called music fan The goal of that program is to make sure that young people party kids of all ages Shapes backgrounds musical preferences are safe and have fun when they go out and The panel of speakers I have here despite are in addition to many of their other professional Accomplishments are all working towards that same goal in some way I am really excited to have them here out of these six speakers up here Five of them have never been to a reform conference before So I've I've done iterations of this session for many audiences before I've done Sessions where I'm talking about are the party kids any safer yet to music industry professionals to city nightlife regulators even to some law enforcement and Usually the content of that discussion Goes a little bit differently. We spend a lot of time talking about what is harm reduction? Why is harm reduction the most pragmatic response? Why is it so necessary? But I'm thinking for this audience Here at the reform conference where we have the most passionate group of harm reductionistas and drug policy reformers in the world You might have that part already You might not need to hear about young people going out and dying as a result of drug use To understand why harm reduction makes sense. I feel like the people in this room believe that honest drug education and other harm reduction services are just the right thing to do no matter what and So I have brought a bunch of people together here to help you answer the questions that I think you do have When you wonder are the party kids any safer yet? I think that your questions are more along the lines of You know, are we there yet is harm reduction happening? Am I gonna see dance safe at the festival at my favorite festival? Am I gonna see Zendo project? What's taking so long? Why is it so hard? So I put together a panel here. We have a little bit of a balance between advocates on the one side and We have business and regulatory Representatives on the other side. So I'm gonna do a quick intro before we get into the discussion So, you know who's speaking on the advocacy side? We are very happy and I'm sure many of you know her to have Missy Woldridge Executive director of dance safe, which if you haven't seen their amazing booth out there, please do stop by and check it out It's amazing We also have Shan and Claire Pettit who is a Zendo project coordinator And just for the couple of people in the room who might not know Zendo project You want to say a couple words about what Zendo does at festivals? Yeah, Zendo is a psychedelic harm reduction space So we go to music festivals set up a safe space and have trained volunteers where people can sit with us Especially if they're having a difficult time on a psychedelic, but otherwise nonetheless Thank you, and she's also helping coordinate the on-site mental health space here at the conference So doing kind of double-duty here speaker and and helping out with that On the end here, some people also made know this woman. This is Dee Dee Goldsmith Her daughter Shelly Unfortunately died two years ago. She had taken MDMA and gone out to an event here in DC Actually, and this is what spurred her to start the amend the rave act campaign, which we're gonna hear about Incredibly brave amazing woman. I'm so proud to work with on the other side here I'm gonna start with Mark Lawrence. He is CEO of the Association for Electronic Music Came all the way from Brighton, UK to join us. You want to Cheers You want to tell us a little bit about the scope of services? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, as you can tell I'm a Brit Brit abroad today Warm reception already so the Association for Electronic Music is a trade body for the whole ecosystem globally for electronic music from live events to media to record labels publishers artist managers the whole gambit Started around four years ago as a Small child in the eye of Ben Turner who manages Richie Horton and Crossness Sarah He was a lawyer for deep dish and we opened for membership in Only 18 months ago actually and my kind of mission for 2016 is to bring all of the major players in the live space together to back a harm reduction campaign Fantastic so happy to have you here Another person that we're very lucky to have with us is a woman whose job is maybe cooler than mine Certainly her title is this is Kate Becker. She is director of the office of film and music in Seattle and she Has in addition to many other fantastic amazing projects She has helped coordinate a response in Seattle around some of the deaths that they've seen at major EDM festivals there So that's that's the reason that we have her but you also used to be a venue owner yourself, right? I ran all ages venues and produced concerts for many years in Seattle. Yes, right? So she kind of sees it from both sides city regulation aspect and also as a venue owner And then finally our our last speaker. I'm really really happy to have him here today This is Dee Dee Fleming. He is the co-founder of the Doolab based out of Los Angeles I can see some people already know In addition to the all the other cool stuff that the Doolab does they produce California festivals like Woogie weekend and Dirty Bird camp out and their signature event lightning in a bottle So how many people are in this room have been to lightning in a bottle? All right, so we got a few people. That's good You guys are ahead of the crowd because we're gonna talk we're gonna start off talking about lightning in a bottle in over the past year DPA dance safe Zendo project and another organization called mutual aid response services worked with Dee Dee and with others at Lightning in a bottle to really put together a comprehensive Package of harm reduction services at a festival and the goal was to make lightning in a bottle the model festival for these services in the United States and To be you know give credit where it's due lightning in a bottle had already been doing a lot in this realm They had already had Dan save that at Zendo so at this year's event in 2015 it was really about kind of coordinating all that together and most importantly Communicating to the attendees and to the public, you know that this was a philosophy This was a response that really made sense and that everybody was working together on to keep people safe So I'm gonna start off Before we get into that discussion you want to tell us a little bit about for those who haven't been to the event What it's like and the size and that sort of thing Yeah, absolutely lightning in a bottle is It's 11 years old now. It started, you know as a 1200 person Kind of gathering music festival kind of exploring what we wanted to be but now it's upwards of 25,000 people It's five days long and I think 99.5 percent of our attendees come and they camp for the weekend so we've essentially created a city for five days and You know, we have we have the music. That's a big component of it, but we have yoga. We have workshops. We have panels like this we have massive amounts of art and just people really kind of come there and they feel safe and they feel like they can participate and really create the event with us and and That's kind of what we're creating is it's just kind of a platform for people to come and do that So with that and having a city environment and having, you know, a very intense environment We've always looked at the harm reduction efforts as absolutely crucial to just keep everyone safe Keep everyone, you know, make sure that everyone goes home You know after a long weekend of adventures, so Yeah, and you can say a little bit more because you know, it's a long it's a long festival has been going for a while and How did you first hear about harm reduction? Like what kind of services? How did this get to your consciousness? well, fortunately when we began back in 2006 we were able to Not partner with but have a bunch of representatives from the Black Rock Rangers come out and be a part of the festival and You know, the Black Rock Rangers are from Burning Man and they kind of head up the not the security but the You know, they're the the people on the ground that are the eyes and the ears of Burning Man It's it's a massive city and it needs a lot of people to kind of make sure that the attendees out there are protected so they came on board with us and and dove right in in addition to our security and Through them we got to meet dance safe and we got to meet Zendo and We got to learn a lot of the harm reduction efforts that Burning Man has and we got to slowly Put them into our event. So we were really fortunate from day one And so it does sound like you're fortunate you have some influence from Burning Man, which is you know It's progressive in a lot of ways and not so much in others. Maybe we'll talk about that but In terms of actually bringing this to your festival, you know, you've had a few different venues, right? So what was the experience like in terms of bringing these additional services on board like over the challenges? Yeah, we're we're on our fifth venue the first three years it was small and You know we we're doing everything we could to just kind of make this thing happen So we weren't thinking about all of these additional, you know things that we could add to the festival to make it safer and better but yeah, the jumping venues every few years is is our biggest challenge for a number of reasons and Not everyone is accepting or as accepting of the different initiatives that we put in place You know, we had an event in 2013 that I think just went south and A lot of people were arrested Nobody felt safe. Nobody felt like they were being looked after by law enforcement and by the authorities They thought that we had abandoned them and that was because the communication with with the local County and law enforcement Wasn't there. We tried to have it, but it wasn't received. So because of that the things that we put in place to make people safe Didn't work and unfortunately everyone was safe at the event everyone left the event alive but that was probably our toughest most challenging year and then skip ahead to our current venue where we have law enforcement That's very receptive of some of these things that we're doing and a county and a health director at the county That's very receptive to different initiatives that we have not all but a lot And it really makes it a lot easier for us and ultimately everyone's safer because of it And I think you know it's important that the folks in this audience hear this kind of thing So this is the kind of struggle that an event producer has that wants to do the right thing I'm sure you had every kind of same conversation that you had with this Con with this one venue that you did with your following venue. So what what do you think the distinction is? between how that worked out Honestly, I don't know what I mean. I have some thoughts but You know, I think like any government the people at the top kind of set the agenda and depending on what that agenda is trickles down to the people that I work with and They're the cards that I have and I have to kind of deal with that so You know if you have a sheriff that's just very closed-minded and and not into You know harm reduction or or just not into the event itself Really a lot of it comes down to that if they don't want the event to take place They don't really have a choice because maybe the county approved it. So they just have to go along So they're not necessarily gonna make your life easier because they're not thrilled that they're doing their job and putting their energy toward me So that there's a lot of different factors at play But it really comes from the top And so with this new venue focusing on the on the positive side of things, you know You had a good relationship and so can you say a little bit about how your conversations went when you said? Hey, this is how we're gonna do it. We're gonna have dance safe. We're gonna have Zendo This is the service like how did those conversations go? Well, really the conversation started with me Introducing who we are what our background is What had just happened? Prior to coming out, you know, you Google it you can figure it out So I thought I would just tell them everything that happened And and what happened was just a lot of people got arrested 60 people got arrested in two days And in the 10 years that we've done this event aside from that year. We've had I think six arrests total So we had 60 in two days at that one particular venue. So I was very up front with them and and really kind of laid out what our goals are and it's to put on the event and It's to have everyone You know, they're protected and safe. I talked about the drug thing straight away and You know, they say, what is your stance on drugs? Our stance is that we don't want drugs at our festival We are not a drug festival and you know, we're zero tolerance festival. However That doesn't really mean much because the drugs are gonna be there. So we have to put in the appropriate You know tools together to be able to combat that and make sure that everyone is safe and we need you law enforcement and fire department and health department and You know the AMR ambulance teams and the outside agencies to work closely with us and Our production team our security team our medical team and our harm reduction teams to be able to actually work together as a team and That's the first thing I say and I have to see how receptive He or she is to that and they were very receptive to that and then you start to kind of trickle out the things that we do And then you kind of gauge the response and now in a year three scenario It's a lot more comfortable and it's a lot easier because we know that they're receptive to most of these things So you're able to build a relationship with them. Absolutely, you know We can sit around a room like this with 20 people pre-planning meetings and we can joke now where you know, two years ago They were like, you know, 20 pairs of eyes staring me down Thinking that I'm lying to them and that you know And I kind of jokingly tell them like hey, these people are gonna want to come up and give you a hug They're not gonna want to come up and battle you and they're just like Yeah, right kid and Now they laugh because they get a lot of hugs at our festival and Yeah, and I want to point out something that you said you said harm reduction team So like it's important to understand there's like a jillion people that go into putting on a large-scale festival like the kind that that did he runs with with all the people that he works with and You know, so now I want to go back to this side of things Missy wasn't on on site But I believe Shannon was there at lightning in a bottle And so I want to have folks I want to have you both talk about what it's like to be part of the harm reduction team Where you're really integrated in all the services and you're hearing you know You have the people the venue owner come by check in on you. You can talk with security. Tell the audience a little bit about that Well, that's our ideals that were integrated and we've been really fortunate at lightning in a bottle and and several others This year several other events. We're sandwiched the Zendo is sandwiched between the Rangers And the medical so we can triage really well with them And oftentimes the model is that Rangers are roaming through the event They're seeing things like Dee Dee said the eyes and ears. They're bringing people to us in the Zendo They're bringing medical emergencies to the medical team or calling the medical team out to the field And sometimes calling us out, too So they're really kind of the magnets and they bring people to us because if somebody's having a difficult psychedelic experience at a festival Especially a festival that's really big Um, they're not necessarily going to get noticed the community might not notice them They might not have a medical emergency so people don't feel or or don't know how they can respond Luckily that's changing as people find out about the harm reduction services They are self-referring or the community is walking people in but the Rangers are really crucial for that One just small example from lightning in a bottle with working with Rangers Especially very closely was they had somebody out in the field who we who couldn't really walk They were kind of frozen in an LSD trip that that wasn't going well for them So we were trying to figure out they can't walk do we call Medical to come get them so a ranger drove her personal car over to this person and got them in the car and drove The car back right in front of us at Rangers and and the Zendo and she said I can't get him out of the car He his muscles were atrophied. We had a medically checked out. He was fine. Just just muscles atrophied or Stuck yeah, so what did we do we had two Zendo volunteers sit in this rangers car for the next six hours and We were smushed because he was stuck in this standing position that he couldn't get out of and he was in the back seat So we me and another person smushed into this car and sit there So we do whatever it takes and and we really couldn't have done that without Resources that the Rangers have so they're they're a really great window for us into the festival world Right, and I think that's an important example actually because you have somebody who would otherwise You know be at the medical tent and there's not a whole lot medically that can be done for that person Or if they're creating some kind of a disturbance then then law enforcement gets involved And that's a whole other range of problems. So let's talk a little bit about dance safe So dance safe was actually physically almost right next to Zendo So you did have like a little block of harm reduction services all in one area, which was kind of nice so You know in the end I guess we We provide a range of services Outside of just drug use so what our outreach looks like our peer-to-peer educators Giving out free water earplugs condoms safe sex tools all of these things to kind of create this healthy environment While you were there in that little city for those several days And I guess our end goal is to prevent as many people as we can from needing medical services or transports or having a difficult experience because they were unsure of what they were on or you know what they were mixing so a lot of ours is peer education information resources and Providing drug checking and early alert system, which wasn't implemented in entirety at this event in particular But the rest of our services were so we're a lot more of that, you know prevention and education very proactive versus Treatment and triage type model Yeah, and let me just jump to Again reminding folks that this is the model right so we have dance safe We have Zendo. We have you know a venue that's really understanding and supportive. We have the Rangers So really like a lot of fantastic things happening at lightning a bottle This is not the case at Most festivals So I just wanted to add to that we do look at law enforcement and the fire department and the ambulance team and the park rangers as Part of the harm reduction team by no means is it just the Rangers and Zendo and dance safe and our medical team It's all of us. It's everybody because The only way that it really truly works is when we're all on the same team when they're not working with us Is when we have big problems, but the team has to consist of everybody. I was just gonna say that's why it works Yeah, so yes, that's a very good point and that's not always the way it goes Right, so you want to say a little bit about other festivals that dance safe has been at and what the experience is like compared to this one Yeah, absolutely. So in some cases we have no direct first of all, there's no Psych support at all. So sometimes we fill that gap And we're there to educate and we're not necessarily equipped for that. Sometimes they Like to pull certain cards off of our table say we can't educate on certain things We have no direct contact with medical at all. I mean, it's can be a battle to get a radio And that's a big challenge for us because we're peer-led. We've been around for a while We're often the first point of contact and risky and challenging situations Where and especially in ones where it's not clear to the participants that they won't get in trouble For going to see security or medical. So that's a bigger challenge And sometimes people venues don't want to give out free water So we're they come and try to shut us down tells we can't have water So there are a range of challenges that we face just to provide those essentials to create a safe safe setting and Let me go to Zendo because you guys I think work at a certain number of festivals, right? So you maybe haven't had the same kind of experience of not working with a Friendly sort of venue. Can you say is it been mostly good or bad? It's definitely gotten better over the years since Zendo started in 2012 Um, as we work more with festivals, they begin to understand what harm reduction is and why we need certain things Why we need radios why we need transport at the beginning. They don't get it, but it's it's gotten much better We went to seven events this year and our eighth one is tomorrow at catharsis Right on so good to know you can see that service in action at catharsis tomorrow Hopefully you don't need the service, but you could see it nonetheless I'm gonna move now to a little discussion. I want to talk to Kate about what's happening in Seattle so you want to give us just a Just a summary of the festival scene in Seattle and the challenges you're facing there Yes, so we have a very big EDM scene in Seattle It's throughout our clubs and we have a number of big festivals that happen in and around the city Largely produced by the same independent promoter who's been around for 20 years producing big events in Seattle and This isn't my normal work to be working in this arena but it is such a big part of our music industry there that it makes sense for me too and I was Contacted by the promoter about a year and a half ago to and they said we're really we're really concerned we've lost a few young people and we're really concerned with what's happening and We have the fire department working with us very nicely and we cannot get the police to work with us And so, you know, I'm sitting at the policy tables at the city I'm on the mayor's cabinet and I'm hearing discussion about what's happening But nothing very constructive really happening at those tables because no one's firsthand at those events No one's going in to actually help solve problems in those events, right? So I decided all right So how can we get all the critical players who all seem to have an opinion? Even though they may never have been through the doors of one of these events to come together and and work together So I did a music safety summit in December of last year that was by invitation only for a hundred and one Professionals that people who run our hospital our trauma hospital a Few frontline medics a few EDM promoters and festival promoters Some public health people couple of lawyers and law enforcement all together in the same room to Invitation only no media allowed. Let's have some honest conversation to talk about what's going on It was so constructive and a few drug researchers also were in the room University of Washington is in Seattle and they've been doing some Longitudinal studies on what's happening with MDMA usage and Mali usage and other synthetic drugs And so they were there and they were so constructive in the conversation so helpful in getting these professionals to understand it And the promoters meanwhile have up their harm reduction game in a very very good way So free spring water throughout the event. They have something called the conscious crew That is people who are part of the EDM seen there who are very visible at all their events who go around There must be literally 100 to 200 of them at these events who go around and if somebody looks like they're in trouble They say hey, you know, you don't look like you're feeling so great Will you come with me and they get him off to either a chill tent or a medical tent and get them some attention, right? Just last month. I did the second music safety summit that was more of a peer-to-peer event I figured those are the best people to figure out how to navigate this space and increase safety At these events and so that was really constructive too and they came up with some things So again, it was about a hundred people and they really came up with some good Strategies for how to increase safety themselves in that those events. I was just at Freak night Which is a big giant two-night festival in Seattle, except it wasn't in Seattle this year It was 30 miles south of Seattle in Tacoma because the promoters are so nervous about working in Seattle right now and So they were at the Tacoma dome and I was down there on the first night And the second night was Halloween night and I have a daughter. It's her last year trick-or-treating I couldn't go so I had to be with her and but they had a sum total of 13 Transports from 27,000 people at an event and 10 of them were alcohol related That's what the medics reported so yeah, that's really great work to here in Seattle Are there folks from Seattle in the audience up there? There we go. Yes, and the promoters because of their nervousness about the lack of Police working in their events and I'm sorry when 11 to 15,000 people are gathered anywhere It's public safety issue right However, our police department will not go in there right now. It is their policy. They will not go in So the promoters have been nervous about having dance safe at their events because they are acknowledging There may be some people here doing drugs and they may need some harm reduction services But this time with and Amber was there This was their first dance safe booth inside a USC event in Seattle You guys are great And what do you think made the difference with that like was it just there was more attention? It was the maybe the amazing organizing you had done What was the factor that led to that change you think well, you know their audience their Participants the people who buy their tickets and keep them in business are indeed asking them for harm reduction services Some of them are asking them to have drug testing on site that conversation is underway They did not make that giant leap, but they did indeed have a yeah Yeah, baby steps, right? So this is really fantastic work in Seattle. I want to go to mark for a section for a second So we can hear How does this compare to other US festivals that you might work with or even internationally? Rather than tackle each individual festival I think my observation when I come to North America is there are three opportunities to take or Maybe you could describe them as three things that are missing and that's standardization Education and communication and what I mean by that is that almost without question across Europe There will be a standard process for gaining a license for an event that everyone knows that they have to follow And there will be a standard set of practices to ensure the safety and the passing of event with as few incidents as possible I can UK you have the purple guy and that's how it's done There is no variance to that whereas in the US across the states and by definition I guess of being a federal government you have different processes no consistency and no best practice So the first thing is just a glowing opportunity right glaring opportunity right there Which is to try and create some kind of standardization So that everyone can share the same vision and objectives between an event so that everyone is seen as being part of the team secondly education In in Europe typically and in other parts of the world you have much better dialogue around Acknowledging that drugs are consumed in society and where they're consuming how they're consumed and and and whether that's right Or wrong is an issue for another day from from an industry perspective. I mean electronic music industry I'll speak on behalf of I'm not gonna say if it's anti drugs or pro drugs But it's definitely anti death and to that to that extent therefore you need to have high standards So at the moment what strikes me in North America is education is passed through a media Dialogue which tends to be sensationalist rather than constructive and it has an absence of fact And and what I mean by absence of fact is it doesn't have comparative data between events and states saying these are the rates of Transports at NFL these are the rates of transports at hockey match These are the rates of transports at an event of this size this size and this size And so you just have a kind of reactive Media and position on all the events and then finally I think in terms of communication just by sheer scale of the market And this is what we're trying to do you don't see communication between the promoters And you don't see communication particularly between the state saying this is what we just learned now What are we gonna do? This is what we just tested we found that now What are we gonna do so there's no rapid reaction in fact even at the LA County Task Force? We were talking to the chief of police and he came out saying fascinating So we took all of these drugs from the amnesty bins, and we've sent them off for testing. Okay, and When you're gonna get those back it could be eight weeks like well Good But a really effective model would be to take them test them and respond immediately in real-time minute by minute Saying this is out there. Don't take that. This is out there. Don't take that because that's life-saving brilliant And the great the benefit of that approach that's not something that you need to battle the law with I don't think that's not a legal issue That's just that's kind of like a response to a situation because this is effectively law enforcement using technology in a positive way Both to diagnose or understand what the substances are then also choose technology to broadcast their responses in real-time So I think those are the three opportunities That North America can choose to take just standardization education and communication Yeah, thank you for being such an incredible advocate. We need people like him talking to other industry players who understands harm reduction Because there's a lot of other event producers out there that haven't necessarily gotten the message They've gotten the message. They don't know what to do yet. There a lot of events in the US that are Run by like a few number of companies. So you have your live nation You have your insomniac you have some AEG events like there's a whole map of like who's running what festival and so It's easier when you can get the top levels to buy in and then get the policies to go at the all the different festivals That may be under those umbrellas and so I think you are having those kind of conversations We'll see Those are going. Let us know what what's happening in some of those companies. I'm sure at times we'll get you know Some flak from from any number of people in this room and you know I think it's it's fascinating to talk to people in reasonably senior roles in insomniac and live nation in SFX because What you've got here is this is kind of two-tier Scene in electronic music you have the underground and the boutique and the creative and then you have raw large commerce And that's whether you like it or not We're in a position now where electronic music has found itself fast-tracked into giant commercial events And now you have an infrastructure weight kind of racing to catch up with that and so you have giant public Businesses that are being asked to be put on point on drugs policy and that's just never going to happen There's no way that those businesses can take that risk and I guess in the end What's happened is prohibition as pre as has kind of bred inhibition and so that the difficulties in educating business media and patrons has led to a sort of retraction from large businesses For fear of legal repercussion or from insurance policy repercussion and so something has to break So that so the larger businesses now will will will rightly say if this is illegal Then this doesn't happen if this is illegal then this doesn't happen if that's a gray area then I'm not doing that And so it needs third parties to make the kind of the push on the legal and legislative Framework and to see if to push the boundaries of the law so the larger businesses can come behind and say okay We're now the law's move we can make a difference. Yeah, so I think we might be those third parties that he's talking about I have a feeling But let's go a little bit onto these these laws because I think a lot of people in the room might be familiar with one in particular that Event producers often point out as a barrier towards them integrating more harm reduction services and that's the rave act Which was originally passed in 2004 it had a different name but we're gonna call it the rave act because we call it like it is and I want to go now to D. D. Goldsmith and I want to hear I want you to share your story with us because I think you know your experience is the one where people point out All the time the reason why prohibition and why harm reduction doesn't happen It's because people die and like this is why we need to keep prohibiting drugs But like you've literally had this experience and you came to a different kind of conclusion And so I would like you to share with us your story well, it's a very unlikely journey for a 59 year old political science mom, you know, we just kind of going from one thing to another Shelly was a Entering her second year at UVA. She was a Jefferson scholar. She was a happy healthy well-adjusted kid She was I she went The situation was that a bunch of her friends had gotten together they rented a bus very responsible thing to do They were in Charlottesville went to DC On the way they'd all taken MDMA When they got there everything was going along fine until some of the members of The group that was with her couldn't find Shelly and then the medical emergency presented itself. She had been there for I guess about four hours and You know, you can tell by just her story that she's pretty type A and if she's gonna dance I'm sure she's dancing hard for four hours and you know, as you all know MDMA will affects your body's ability to regulate temperature So if you're in an overheated environment doing aerobic sort of exercise It can lead to hypothermia and that's exactly what happened to Shelly She suffered hypothermia cardiac arrest and died at echo stage and that was on August 31st, 2013 Since then It's been a strange journey at first. I assumed it was something in it She was the only one that died in her group. So it didn't make a lot of sense and our my husband My reaction was it's got to be something. There's you know, what is it? So three months later we get the toxicology report into pure MDMA and I Didn't know what to think of that Okay, so it wasn't adulterated Okay, pure MDMA. Can you die of pure MDMA? Well the more I looked into it the more I found that no probably you can't but Unless you use it in the wrong environment So I started thinking about and well, that's just crazy as can be what do you mean the wrong environment and the more I looked into it the more I realized that echo stage is it's a private club. It's a concert hall here in DC and Apparently is just about one of the worst in terms of safe settings They tend to be overcrowded. They have difficulty maintaining cool ambient temperature They have no access to free water In fact, some of the witnessing that I've heard from people that have offered testimony about having Been to concerts there say that they even positioned matrons in the bathrooms to keep you from filling your water bottles All right, I mean, you know, this is something a mother is listening to just you know, just recoiling in horror so I started putting that stuff together and Connecting with other harm reduction groups. I didn't know the words harm reduction I mean it makes perfect sense to me now But at the time it was a new concept and I started to learn more about it And as I started to learn more about it, it kept coming back to well this rave act What about the rave act? What's what's the problem here? Well, there's this clause saying if you maintain a drug-involved premises That will get promoters into big trouble if they provide some harm reduction services including water peer-to-peer education that sort of thing so The long and short of it was unless there's a change in the law. We can't institute safety first measures at concerts I thought oh, that's just nuts political science person. Yeah men the rave act. You know, this is what you do You guys are amazing. I have not felt such wonderful support. It's it's it's a real lonely journey You know it is out there. You know, it's not easy So as I learned more about it amending the rave act became what we needed to do And so we launched the campaign about a year ago and are making really It seems slow, but I used to work for congressmen for a number of years and I know how slow slow can be We've recently met with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on DCP and they were so receptive It was it was really unbelievable What they needed me to do immediately is to find some legislator that they could work with to try and change this problem and Beyond that they even asked for mark. I wanted to address this to you Measures that would constitute safe settings. We put together a list for NDCP at their request What would constitute a safe setting in your mind? So it was a real great opportunity in that regard Yeah, so we're on that because I think standardization of that sort of thing is very important for venues So that's where we're at now. We've got I've got both of Virginia senators. I delivered the 14,000 signatures today Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome, and I think they're all going what LND CP Okay, they involved so then oh, and you've got the other senators. So it's starting to meld. I'm feeling it Yeah, thank you so much for that work. Did it's incredible. Can we just give her another round of applause? It's getting a little teary in the room It's real stuff. You know this is real stuff She wanted to protect her friends when she died I couldn't figure out what to do with this and when I figured it out It was like You know there she was like that's it you go and protect my friends. You have got the skillset to do it So this is going to make an incredible impact when when we amend the rave act But there are so many other challenges and I think Mark mentioned those and I think Kate and Dee Dee both Other Dee Dee both know them and so I want to I want to go into that a little bit because Amending the rave act is that going to make a difference in Seattle? For example, will that change? What they can do at those festivals in Seattle. Well, that is definitely part of their concern. Yes So I think it will make a difference. Yes That's really good to hear. Let's go to mark two because you raised another issue with with insurance companies. Okay insurance companies Probably don't care about the rave. Maybe they do. I don't know. What do you think? So is this going to make an impact when we're talking on that level or is there something else going on here that? We're going to need to address in order to make these events safer Big question I'm putting it on you Well, it's all gonna help isn't it as I say if the if the starting point from blunt business is is it legal? Yes, or no if it's illegal Then this is where the line comes down and then if you get risk averse or large public companies that have to follow that line That's how it is if you move the line Then you can move the level of harm reduction what you also get Undoubtedly are insurance companies that come down and say if you want this event in your event It's classed in this category and it's you know There's 25,000 kids partying in the sunshine and you know then to electronic music then this is your premium and and it and it Becreates an anti-harm reduction environment So, you know one of the things that definitely came out when we're in the room in LA County was there was there was definitely a shared Vision to have safe events that was the positive that came out of it without any doubt That was the purpose behind behind that review, but it doesn't feel like that's a shared purpose across The North America and across all the people involved in the ecosystem and that that for me seems like the first place You have to start is why does everybody want to you know? What is the shared objective? Is it to have events that are safe if that if everyone agrees on that? Then let's work backwards from that at the moment We still got debates whether or not those events should go ahead and the reason why that debate still happens because there's no Evidence about whether or not they're more or less safe than others you and I know That the transport rate is is about small as it can get relative to other types of events Compared to an LFL NFL game anything else and so we just have this massive absence of statistics But huge decisions being made in the absence of those statistics and that really doesn't feel appropriate Yeah, and let me catch people up. You mentioned LA County a couple of times for those that don't know LA County Initiated first they were going to say they were going to ban raves raves on County property And then they kind of backed off a little from that and they said well Let's have a task force to look at this and see if we should or not Funnily enough they had literally done the exact same thing five years before Literally the same thing another rave task force another threat. They were going to ban raves at the end of the original task force They came up with some recommendations health and safety recommendations which unfortunately they never carried out and so five years later We see where they are they're considering the same question and mark has been involved in this missy's been involved in this and you know We're coming to them with the same responses. We're like well Maybe you ought to do what we said you ought to do five years ago just an idea But as mark has indicated there's a lot of Agendas there's a lot of politics in the room and so it's a challenging space I want to go to DD Fleming. You know you live in Los Angeles. You do the festivals outside of it So this the county thing is a little bit outside of your purview But in terms of amending the rave act or other things that might change the environment like what would clear the path for you to do more? Well, we kind of clear our own path And you know, I can't say that everything that we do Would fall in line with you know, what the ray back would or would not allow So I think that as a positive thing. I think there's a lot of Smart people that say, you know what this makes sense. This is logical. This is common sense. Let's go ahead and do it If everyone went to the book, you know, none of us would be doing our jobs No, you know, we wouldn't have the ability to it just wouldn't be possible So I think that if it were amended Or eliminated It would make it a lot easier to walk into the room and say this is who we are. This is what we're gonna do Gonna do not So we'd like to do this. What do you think about this? What are your thoughts? You know, and it's a dance and you have to dance a lot to make the dance actually happen So it would be a lot more fun for me to walk into the room and just be like guys This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna make this happen. These are the people that are gonna be there with us and You know, it's gonna be fun. Yeah, but you know, so hopefully that happens Yeah, absolutely And so I want to talk a little bit about the one thing Missy mentioned it that at lightning a bottle You weren't able to do, you know, which is drug checking which I think to a lot of us in the room You know for those who don't know this is well, I'll let Missy explain it But this is something that's still It's it's hard to get into the conversation when we're talking about how to make events safer And this is one thing that probably amend the revac amending the revact might not fully You know give space to and so I'm gonna go to Missy and just briefly for the folks that might not know what drug Checking is or taking advantage of the service that we have at the reform conference to do it from 6 to 9 p.m Just say a little about what that is and and your struggles to get this happening at festivals So drug checking is this larger umbrella term That's used to describe a process in which drug contents are identified So it can range from the type of drug checking that we do which is using a chemical reagents Their field has to help identify whatever chemicals mostly present I mean it's used by dropping it on a sample of the substance and watching a color change to Advanced technology that goes through laboratory testing and you can identify percentages and all drug contents and so What we do is use this to help people identify what they have and then we go through this You know Education session on what does this mean? What is a dosage? How do you help someone if they're having a difficult time and the goal is to empower people to make informed decisions and know What they're putting into their bodies before they move forward and do that so? As you can imagine handling a schedule one substance Might not be the most popular idea So we do have a lot of challenges and a lot of it is built on Relationships as DD was mentioning and you know getting Your medical team local law enforcement and all of those folks on board with what you're doing Also opens up the door for what we like to call an early alert system and this is in real time So what we do is we check the jugs we have this session This educational session and then what we can do is Give like 12 hour batch updates to the medical team of what we're seeing and Along in the party and then we can also do An early alert community board for patrons and so they can stop by and they can see oh Wow that blue rabbit pill I shouldn't take that or this or that and that stirs that gets the conversation going It also changes the social norm It tells people that we don't want adulterated substances here And that's not okay and that we care about our bodies and we care about what we put into it So it kind of has that whole that powerful message as well. So the challenges are really You know working with all the stakeholders that are at the table Implementing this early alert system potential In getting the information out to people so in some cases we kind of go under the radar Some event producers are okay with it. They say okay. I know the need is here But I don't know anything about this, you know And so that's sometimes how we function we normally ask In some cases we do run a gate harm reduction I can speak to some of my folks right here when they know the need and that community is there if the vent producer hasn't told them no They buy tickets out of their own pockets and they go and they do it because they know it saves lives so You know we can work But you know when it's when it's in a contract We don't do it and we do work with some of the larger folks and we don't provide that service So it's an interesting Dynamic we have and really tailoring our services. Yeah, I know you and I have had some deep conversations about We're like, you know, we're working on getting harm reduction Into you know integrated on an official level and sometimes that means making sacrifices and unfortunately drug-checking is Usually one of those sacrifices so and even on this panel I think you know, there's some kind of split opinion about like, you know If this is the right thing to do because there is still a lot of belief about like you're just helping people use drugs Like they don't there's a not an understanding about the sort of potentially life-saving aspect of this and so I Think Shannon wants to add something here. Yeah, I just wanted to point out that Your talk at Wesley and some people say well if you're doing Chemical reagent drug testing you're giving people a false sense of security because you don't know all of what's in there You know, some of what's in there, you know, this might be this is present in this substance And I would just say I don't know any situation where more information is a bad idea Yeah Excellent point for buttle and then I think we'll go to this end of the I was just gonna say that it's also important to point out in that is that we never tell anyone It's safe to use a drug and that's a misperception right like we're here to tell someone and In terms of behavioral intention I can say about eight times out of ten when we have a drug checking result And it wasn't what the person had intended to consume they choose not to consume it So it absolutely affects behavioral intention as well. So that's an important point to make. Yeah And I'm gonna jump in there too before I go down there because the other thing too I'm taking I'm taking moderator privilege here Moderator privilege to add that we don't always want to give the impression that people will not take the substance That's tested because that runs into the problem, especially that happens in other areas of drug policy reform where you're like Oh, you're doing harm reduction, but it's just so people go into treatment. It's like, oh, you're just doing drug checking So people just not take you know a drug We don't want them to take like it's a very tricky road to like go down and you have to be careful with that And so I want to go down now to this end of the table where the drug checking conversations Are happening among industry and see the the challenges and how that's been going Well Speak freely speak freely Gather your thoughts Where it gets delicate and I think it's again It's having a global perspective and it's what I call the law of unintended consequences because there are unique situations in different countries and the way I perceive the American situation is there's there is an impurity battle Which is that there are substances that often contain things they shouldn't well admittedly That's not always the case and there's no guarantee even if you have something that's pure that you won't avoid a Negative result at the end and nonetheless in a lot of Europe now You have a completely different situation which is it's not an issue of impurity It's an issue of purity which is pills that have 240 milligrams of MDMA in them that are now Quadruple strength past the level in which your typical 18 year old girl would be able to consume So you're literally playing the lottery with it It's it's a very different situation where and that's where I think the industry is concerned where you could have a test That says pure but the outcome could be Taking something that's almost likely to give you a bad outcome Especially if it's your first time not used to it You don't know the conditions in which to take it so I think you know we're now seeing this thing It's interesting sort of swingometer across the globe now where North American issue is an impurity issue European issue is a purity issue and the responses need to be different and need to be measured accordingly Which is why I think the spectrograph route is interesting in the way It's being explored now in Holland and in in England where there's almost immediate response to what's in them and how strong And I think that's that's really so it's I don't think anyone At the end of the day could sit there and say that testing isn't a good thing It's just the level of sophistication needed in the different territories to the different issues that territories face and I'm gonna let D.D. Goldsmith here jump in as a mother and again as somebody who's really new to all of this and so you Can tell us what what your what your thoughts are? I? See it as a natural extension of harm reduction from a legislative Perspective it's a non-starter. It's a deal breaker for the legislators. They will never ever agree to Working with me towards other safe-setting measures including peer-to-peer on-site peer-to-peer education If drug testing is a part of that so it's just reality I mean I get it but you got it one step at a time one rung of the ladder So if we get peer-to-peer education in With the let you know By amending the rave act or changing clarifying the regulations. That's where we're headed Yeah, and it's one thing I mean Ethan points this out as well It's the challenge between incremental policy reform and the visionary sort of like this is the whole goal that we're going for And this is how it plays out in this arena and Kate Do you want to say something because you the conversation is happening in Seattle? So maybe you can give us some insight on how that's going down in that city Well, it's complex You know the promoters the big promoters are very very concerned about Drug checking on their property. They are concerned that if they cannot get Law enforcement to willingly work inside the venue now. How could they possibly do that? How could they possibly say look we to have a zero tolerance policy here? We want you working inside our venues and we have drug testing going on so Yeah, it's the one step at a time They've made tremendous strides and I just want to be clear I have much respect for the Seattle police department They do tremendous work with homelessness with law enforcement assisted diversion and many other things They just don't really get it yet on this issue Yeah, and so I'm gonna go down to DD Fleming and get your questions ready because we're about to open it up and Have you guys participate in the conversation? So I was gonna pin you with a question, but I'm gonna let you just say your thoughts well You can throw the question at me, but I think Like I hear a lot of great points up here and they all make complete sense every one of them and I think the starting point for me is Education and that's before people even get to the festival and Instead of just saying okay right now. We want to make drug testing drug checking legal or acceptable. I would Start by saying let us communicate with our audience openly About the risks and the potential of risk and use the word drugs when we're communicating to our audience because and if we can start there Then we can and and the drug checking comes down the road Then we can inform them what that actually means what it is what it entails and that it's not a green light And it's not you know this first festivals are free for all but The most important thing that we can do and figure out how to do better is communicate and educate the audience before they even arrive Absolutely, that's a really great point And I think that what you're pointing out is might be the wave of Future harm reduction and education at festivals which is more use of like social media and partnering between advocacy Organizations and festival producers to get these messages out before people even get to the party to educate them because I've honestly I've walked into festivals where I was like if there was drug checking going on here It would be crazy like because there's has to be a certain level of education among the population itself about what it's for Before it's you know well utilized. So I'll just throw that out there. Oh Shannon. You want to just a quick comment? I often show up to festivals to work for Zendo and I'm in the parking lot and people are dosing in the parking lot While they still have several hours to wait in line So they aren't even in a place where they can get the education on site yet They're not on site yet They can't get our services because they're not in the gate. Some of them don't even have tickets We've worked with people who can't come into the festival because they don't have a ticket They're outside of the festival having a difficult psychedelic experience So definitely before event education will be helpful And yeah, and I couldn't echo that more I think that the ability to educate and communicate freely way before an event takes place and to repeatedly Communicate is critical as indeed is the role of alcohol within that decision-making process as well I mean you see in a lot of a lot of the events have what I'd called forgive me for this I get cans thrown at me. They kind of spring break mentality to consumption So this kind of yay and everyone comes in and drinks half a bottle something before they get in and when you're drunk You make drunk decisions. You don't make sober decisions when you're drunk So so you know when you when you have if you're able to communicate and set in place a thought process that says I should be more sensible. I should be more You know, I should make better decisions that will create change But at the moment what you have is this kind of rampant consumerism on alcohol combined with prohibition on drugs That's never gonna lead to a good outcome Yeah, absolutely Yeah, and I just like to add in terms of messaging being so important also From the public health perspective. We recognize that it's more than messaging You have to actually put these services in place. You have to empower people that have to have the tools the resources all of that So as much as you know, you can Send these messages, but we also kind of have to make sure it's paired with the services that young people need as well So it's interesting dynamic Absolutely Alright, so I'm gonna open this up now to those of you in the room and I'll walk around and take some questions I'm gonna start all the way back here Hi there. So I know that we just talked a little bit about like what we can do on the individualistic level To bring harm reduction to festival spaces where it doesn't exist So I just wanted to like open that up to a broader discussion of other things We can do besides circulating information before the event Like what what can we do over there when I was at Bonnaroo and there was nothing? At all for harm reduction. There was one guy with a backpack walking around selling like a small little test kit So you're asking about people at festivals like what can they do? People that are committed to doing something at a festival or you know if we can't like formally create a space How can we still promote that presence and that? Pressure the people you buy your tickets from It's a pressure the people you buy your tickets from um, I Was also gonna say Not to do too much self-promotion here, but Dan save has a program called Dan save visionaries You can sign up online. It's like a street team So you it's like a points and rewards and they get weekly opportunities and some of that spreading the message But getting an opportunity to do things at events So like equipping yourself with the knowledge and being that peer out there having that testing kit Having that information keeping your eye out and looking for other people knowing when you get on site Where's the closest medical? Where's the closest water? How do I navigate myself around being equipped with even a private Zendo training for yourself? They have them online know how to help someone else that's having a difficult time So there's a lot you can do without being being having a physical thing on site as well Yeah, yeah, yep. No, it's fine Definitely Zendo trainings are on YouTube and on the when website Zendo project org our manual is there Wonderful group of people in the community have put together the manual of psychedelic support also available now online for free It's full of information from what you can do in your community to how you can organize a harm reduction space of your own There's lots of models and though definitely wants to come to the East Coast more I went to Bonnar several years ago and was horrified by what I saw But but I think just starting with ourselves and even just starting in our circle of friends How do you have a conversation? What's working about the substances you use? What's not working? How can we mitigate those risks? What is your plan B? What's your plan C? What's your plan D? Do you know where the medical site is if it comes to plan D? So there's there's a lot that can be done. You can also sign up to volunteer with us on the website We'd love to start organizing people at the bigger festivals where it's really needed Coming back here a do lab you killed it lightning and bottle excellent dirty bird camp out spectacular, thank you Dance safe Zendo project. You guys are awesome. You've been at almost every festival. I've been at this year You do an amazing job. I'm 33 I'm a little bit older than the rest of the kids in my rave crew my husband is too and We kind of default to the mom and dad role We keep everyone safe. We make sure you know, have you drinking water? Have you eaten read these dance safe cards before you take that drug? But what I'm hearing now is we have this new phrase. It's adulting. We're adulting and ravers themselves are trying to take care of Ourselves we're trying to be responsible. We're trying to make sure that our friends are safe So do you think that there is this ethos building within the community that not only do we want harm reduction? But we're actually here to take care of one another and our and ourselves Yes But in all seriousness when I get because of what we do which is kind of because it's a global trade body We deal with things from very commercial rights and royalties issues, which we're not going to go into here to piracy It's a harm reduction I always have this second guess on things which is should you interfere with an ecosystem or will it always reset itself if you leave it alone and There is undoubtedly something happening around everyone looking after themselves And I think if you just take a step back and look at what's happened in the last five years in North America in particular You've seen this just huge explosion of the events both in number and size The quality of the promoters the amount and then you put it in the backdrop of everything we're talking about It was always going to be a reasonably rocky ride from a harm reduction perspective. I think that's you know, we have to acknowledge that and Inevitably as the information starts to get through and the more more people stand up to be to be counted and to make change happen I think undoubtedly you're now seeing a kind of self-policing You know if you if you walk back to the heady days of the late 80s early 90s in the UK It was actually in reality a small scene of a small number of people feeling part of a social movement with a free flow of education And a kind of respect for the situation you're in and so everybody was brought into the scene And you know everyone was helped through their night and and everything was kind of okay And that's it just feels like that's been the antithesis of what's happened here over the last few years And it's now starting to happen So I'm very hopeful that the ecosystem with a few taps of the tillers and some some legislative change will look after itself Yeah, I absolutely agree and thank you for coming to the events it one of the the really neat things for me to see at our events is quietly walking around and Hearing people talk to each other hearing what they say to each other about picking up the piece of trash or or you know They're educating like don't leave that there or you know, they're helping each other Whether it's put up their neighbor's tent or you know, you know trash and recycling type stuff or the drug related stuff It's all there and it's all happening and I get to see it firsthand Which is really awesome and I think that ties into a you had asked as well and it is it's don't be shy You know at at lightning in a bottle, especially people feel really comfortable and really at ease and this lack of judgment and They don't have this like macho peer pressure Surrounding that they might have at other festivals or concerts or or sporting events or whatever so they do have the ability to just simply walk up to people and Make a recommendation or if it looks like someone's in trouble Ask if they're okay, ask if they need help and that's how you can make a difference by just being that person And then it starts to kind of spread and it's contagious and then you have a whole festival of people that care about each other I have one last thing just to kind of play devil's advocate Well, yes, I also see our scene growing so much And things becoming mainstream that it's harder to get that message out to so many young people It makes it way more challenging and while the ethos of Us an event an amazing event like lightning in a bottle isn't the same as some of the events where we're just convincing young People to drink water. So I mean like in some ways. Yes in other ways Not at all because it's so big and we're not getting the message out there the way we should be I think I think sorry harm reductions game will probably be Due to the pain of the commercial reality of the scene now Which is we are seeing you know a slow shrink and rebalancing of the number and scale of festivals and events And I think as they start to sell a few less tickets here and there and you start to have less and less events competing in the same city You'll have more that you can focus best practice on so I think you're seeing any kind of resetting in two ways There's a commercial reset happening. It's just market forces. Just you can't have that many events in one year It's unsustainable and that means that the less you can start to manage those events better when they're slightly fewer Fewer of them to manage Yeah, I totally agree with that and not being an event organizer myself just the size of the event I think it's tempting for events to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow without necessarily thinking about the sustainability plan about the safety, but what I there's two other things I wanted to say briefly is Yeah, it was walking around one festival not long ago And I overheard just these two guys were walking by me and one guy said man I've just realized I have all of this negative self-talk. I really want to work on that And then they just had this whole conversation and like of all the conversations. I've eavesdropped on it was one of the sweetest And the last thing I want to point out is the last two events. We had a Zendo at unfortunately There was a fatality at the event At each of them and each of them was a 43 year old man Two separate occasions two separate 43 year olds And autopsies haven't come back, but probably in my best guess it would be some kind of pre-existing heart condition plus drug use So I think it's not just the party kids. It's the party adults adulting and how can we take care of ourselves? Absolutely, I'd like to add though that y'all aren't invincible Shelly may have had an underlying condition. I mean she died nobody else didn't I mean what does that mean? I mean you don't know if you have sometimes an underlying heart condition liver kidney You've got to be aware of that if you take antidepressants in MDM. Yeah, that's not a non-starter. You've got to really be smart and Kind of you know check out your physical condition. Are there pre-existing conditions in your family? You just have to be smart Yeah, absolutely It's just a call to action for us to go beyond just drug education and to my like self Education being aware of yourself in a different way. I'm gonna go all the way back here again in the middle To me awesome So I wanted to two quick comments one question, then I wanted you to expand on No, you said You said that people can apply pressure to the people that they buy tickets from I think that most attendees have no idea How to do that or what that even means So if you could just explain that On how we can do that after we've already given money to people because that a lot of times we're like well What are we gonna do now not go? You know so and then also From you, I'd like to see you know you focused on like your municipal response and you know what you're doing on the city Level and you're talking about what you all are doing international level What do you see what is either being done or should be done here? focused specifically on the national level here on Bringing all these stakeholders together and getting them all in the same room And actually addressing this issue from an American perspective and actually looking at it and addressing all the issues that you said And then sort of actually implementing a plan I know that Stephanie and Missy have been doing a lot of outreach to the industry here Recently in the last year year and a half through IMF con and stuff So if that's the answer to the question then just expand on it That was only two so Okay, so you could do good old-fashioned organizing right pass out flyers have a meeting gather some people get a voice But Twitter Facebook, they're free right why not organize on social media, right? That is what we have seen happen in Seattle the promoter has taken a very responsible stance and done everything they can to Get great messaging out. They do all sorts of advanced messaging called the message Right about how to be safe at events But their own constituents their own attendees are who are bringing the pressure now for them to increase harm reduction They're seeing it on their own Facebook pages. That's where the pressure is coming, right? So yeah Somebody in the audience pointed out you could not go if it's really not safe. That is an option And then in terms of the industry so although we have a global perspective the first phase of work will be North America So it will be insomniac and SFX and the light working together and the first thing that they will undoubtedly do is to set Their own best practices and in the case of SFX there's a long-established campaign in Holland called celebrate safe Which has a lot of of high standards that they can bring to bear so Rather than wait to have some kind of practice imposed I think the first thing is to have a voluntary code and say these are the standards that will adopt and then you kind of create coalescence around that and I guess I'm lucky Inverted commas. I'm in the room with these guys. I understand the individuals and what they want to achieve Understand where some things don't come out right understand where some things are misrepresented. I understand what their beliefs are I understand the complications as well So the fact that we're even in a discussion whereby we intend to have a pilot launch of a joint harm reduction campaign You know as early as Q1 next year feels me with hope Yeah Okay, coming over here for a question Hi everyone So my question is what role do you artists or maybe their management teams or industry leaders such as like CEO of insomniac? Who obviously everyone follows them on Facebook really almost diehard fans for these artists Like what influence do they have in the whole situation of harm reduction? I think that the artist especially have a tremendous amount of influence and I want to say that they have a tremendous amount of responsibility that some of them neglect heavily At one of our stages as a joke We put a swear jar on the DJ booth Where they had to put a quarter in it every time they said the word fuck and There was a drug jar that every time they encouraged people to do drugs on the microphone They had to put a dollar in it and we just put those up there to just make them aware that they do those things And then it has a big impact and they could do the opposite and have a better impact So I think they have a huge responsibility Yeah, and on the Opposite side of that we've also been lucky enough to have some artists that support us and have been out there crystal method leaders for you in the industry for a long time Future primitive TV s disco biscuits, you know like there's been a lot of people out there that also have supported And used their platform to be able to reach people So we hope to continue that to answer to that as well And as we normalize harm reduction in the industry talking about harm reduction Hopefully more artists will feel comfortable talking about drugs in that fashion instead of encouraging Irresponsible drug use and again, it's that kind of that inhibition that's been bred So I was lucky enough to work with B traits who may or may not know here, but she's a radio one DJ in the UK She did a programming in the UK on how safe my drugs Which was focused in as well as on the kind of the so-called legal highs or not yet the illegal highs and We then did a panel together at the International Music Summit in Ibiza And then we kind of got off stage because it had gone well and said why don't go and do this in Vegas EDM biz a day before electric Daisy Carnival and To say that there was palpable tension around that to do with you know If she said the wrong thing would inhibit her ability to come into the country again would genuine risks It was like what happens to my visa what happens if I say this What if I go on stage and say that the management team get involved so because of the legal framework it Disables global talent from speaking out in America about issues that America faces for fear of losing visas So and that's you know, so it's a genuine risk. There are examples of it or at least the fear is enough You know, so I think there's a there are there's a greater number of artists willing to take responsibility That are disabled from taking that responsibility where they it's most needed But nonetheless we did it nonetheless it went off very very well And we did get some some you know reasonable sort of transformative press off the back of it by doing that panel And I hope that she'll be the first of many to do so. Yeah And I'm taking moderator privilege to say that a lot of times I think artists don't know What what they should say like they can rely on the whole don't-do-drugs thing and it comes off as pretty hypocritical I think to a lot of their fans and especially in the context of festivals where you have sponsored alcohol and beer place, you know So like a lot of that I think is on us like in terms of building some kind of education and language that they Can use when they have the opportunities to do so and not just like thoughtlessly say things into a crowd with no context around it Got a question back here hi in terms of testing drugs from a Sociological standpoint what type of people do not test their drugs and how can we right now help them and educate them And get them these services I'm is that research available anywhere I Mean I can think from like a broader standpoint is tailoring your message Accordingly and being out there being more proactive. I can't speak to there's not enough research out there on drug checking to begin with to really You know give put me in a place where I can speak to what type of people are more likely or less likely to You would be pretty shocked to see the different walks of life that approach our booth and that are interested in learning more About what we have or speaking about their drug experiences So I'm not sure if that answers your question, but I'm not quite sure I have the answer to your question We're gonna go to an audience member actually wants to respond or add to that Yeah, I mean I've seen that most people I'm from Miami and most people Miami do not test your drugs And I did not test my drugs for a long time And it wasn't until I had very negative experiences with the drugs when I did not test them until actually started Getting into that safe and actually testing my drugs So I mean it's usually the people that that they just don't know, you know, they just want to experiment with drugs You know everybody else is doing it. Everybody took the same pills. So obviously they're good, you know, let's fucking take them You know, but I feel like There needs to be more awareness, you know, because a lot of people just don't know They don't know about drug testing and they assume that Molly is just all MDMA and it's all good But people aren't aware that there's random chemicals in there and they could possibly die from that And I think that needs to be that needs to be known that you could die from from taking a random substance So it's usually people that don't don't know about it that do not test your drugs Yeah, excellent point and thank you for speaking up from South Florida where we've seen some truly crazy Stories about novel psychoactive substances being passed off as Molly. So that's a really important message I'm gonna take one more question because you look really eager and then I'm gonna do And then I'm gonna do a closing thought from the panel because I think we're at almost a time Well, it's actually Brian over here actually already asked my question for the evening. So this is a little bit more No, I I'm actually Taking Kevin's notion over here and assisting with answering this last question as well. Um, lots of times we see a certain trust from The only place that you can accurate or not accurate the the only Place that you can get information because it's not given by the school systems is your peers at this point Which leads to a lot of misinformation. It leads to lots of people Hearing about different ways that they can do to their drugs different combinations that they can use and like The facts that these are safe and they get into trusting like they're single drug dealers and stuff like that It's really hard to tell a white powder apart from a white powder I've been volunteering with Dan safe for nine years now and even when your drug dealers says that it's good Even when you've gotten it from them for the last ten years if they're not using a drug testing kit They don't necessarily know so a lot of that a lot of the non-testers that we encounter are more Confident about their product just because of the peer education that they've had from the trust from their drug dealers and I And I also want to say thank you DD Goldsmith for everything that you've done You know, I've been on the ground floor for nine years now testing these kids drugs on a regular basis and everything You're doing right now is really going to change the face of my fight It's really incredible to see and I love to see the progression in it. Thank you so much Okay, we have three minutes left and I'm gonna give the speakers up here a chance to give their final thoughts What what is it that you hope that everybody in this room? Walks out of here and remembers if they remember one thing from this session or there's one thing you want them to do What is that? Pretty soon. I'm gonna call on you to contact your legislators But what I want to leave you with is this is gonna happen. This is small. We can make this change There are enough people that are impacted by drug use that it's a non partisan issue. It's gonna happen Just to re-emphasize from the question earlier in start in your community start with yourself preventative measures setting intentions creating all the different plans ABC Having a safety plan having a non-judgmental space that you can be in with your friends while you're altered So that if psychological issues come up oftentimes, that's when things can escalate and and run into We want to prevent people from getting arrested or hospitalized So if we we create this non-judgmental space with our friends while they're altered We can do a lot of prevention that way and Just to remind you we have an evaluation probably or should on your seat or was handed to you Please do fill those out before you leave so then we can do more sessions like this two years from now Well, I wouldn't be the dance-save lady if I didn't tell you to make sure you always check your drugs and And that you do that And educate yourselves and the people around you, but also in reality Empower each other empower yourselves and make the change that you wish to see Sign the petition to amend the rave act be vocal use your power and let's achieve this together I would just like to say take care of each other a spread enlightenment And don't be afraid to talk to your political officials about what's happening in your community And I would be remiss if I didn't thank Stephanie in the drug policy Alliance. I I Can't remember exactly how we connect connected, but I was thinking oh my god I'm sailing in uncharted waters here when I reached out to her and she was tremendous source of information. I Guess possibly controversially, but when the big business is coming behind the harm reduction campaign I think my personal and professional plea would be despite any kind of Semi prejudice around intent or whatever your experience has been before please back everything that you start to see happen Because everyone has to back it together whatever your beliefs. I would Simply say keep this conversation alive and keep it going because this conversation wasn't happening a year and a half ago and Stephanie is is just leading the way here and actually bringing this to a public audience and Sharing it with the world because that's ultimately where the change is going to come from Thank all of you for being in this room for listening for carrying the message outside of this room I just brought us all together to show that we are on the same side We want the party kids to be safer and from one party kid to all of these party kids. Thank you