Georgia Jones unintentionally overdosed in 2018 during the Mutiny Festival in Portsmouth. If there had been on-site drug testing at the festival where an 18-year-old died after ingesting high-concentration MDMA, her mother claims, her daughter could still be alive.
In Georgia’s mother Janine Milburn’s opinion, drug testing would have revealed what she was taking since there is still too much shame associated with using drugs.
Janine has commented following the publication of fresh findings from Liverpool University and the drug-checking organization The Loop.
According to their study, drug testing did not result in increased drug use.
Additionally, they discovered that two-thirds of individuals who had medications evaluated threw them away if they weren’t what they had anticipated.
“Georgia might have stood a chance”
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Georgia passed away at Mutiny because drug testing wasn’t in place. Twenty-year-old Tommy Cowan also passed away from a drug overdose at the festival.
Luke Betts, the event’s organizer, revealed how attendees were checked for drugs as they entered at an inquest into Georgia’s death.
Georgia’s tablets were “formed to be pure – but extraordinarily high power,” Janine tells BBC Newsbeat. She could have had her medications checked if testing was available, according to Janine.
Georgia Jones would have received guidance on safer pill-taking techniques and information about the potency and quality of her medication.
“Our warning was sent to millions”
In the UK, festivals are not required to do drug testing, and many do not at the moment.
Tom Paine, who organized the Love Saves The Day festival in Bristol, said that he implemented testing during the gathering and that it assisted in lowering drug use.
We were able to issue three cautions about harmful chemicals throughout the course of the weekend, he claims. One of these, he tells three or four times the average potency of ecstasy.”
Not only were we able to issue that warning, but it was also sent along to millions of people by other festivals, bands, and producers.
Festival Republic, one of the biggest music organizers in the nation, has made preparations to implement drug testing at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2017.
The corporation stated in the lead-up to the events that it was awaiting a specific government license to ensure that it was not breaking the law.
Later, Festival Republic CEO Melvin Benn expressed concern that drug testing “may mislead” individuals and failed to account for hazards such as combining alcohol and drugs.
Whether it intends to introduce the service at any upcoming events has not yet received a response from the business.
How does drug testing function?
Liverpool University The Loop’s director, Prof. Fiona Measham, oversaw the organization’s most recent study on drug checking.
Georgia Jones described it as a three-year study that polled 4,240 festival-goers in the UK who had utilized its service.
According to Prof. Measham, “People can come along, take samples of concern, get them analyzed in the lab, and receive confidential counsel and information.”
We discovered that individuals were eager to use the service and were prepared to wait in line for several hours in all types of weather.
But can accessibility to drug testing encourage drug use? Not based on the results of the study.
We can state with some confidence that people don’t take more after using the service, and in fact, most people really take less, says Fiona.
“Only approximately 1% indicated they’d take more, and 48% said they’d take less,” she continues.
Janine, Georgia’s mother, is also in favor of drug testing being made available at future UK festivals.
She continues, “In my opinion, there should be no debate; it should be available.” We all want to save lives at the end of the day, so that’s what this is about.
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