I am not a drug user, but thanks for giving me a list of interesting festivals I’d never heard of before!
Apparently Burning Man is a good place to score, well, pretty much anything.
So any mention of one of these drugs alongside the name of one of these festivals in an Instagram post is valid statistical science?
Well, I guess trumped-up horseshit is about to become notorious as a Burning Man drug because I’m off to post on Instagram that this is the biggest load of trumped-up horseshit I’ve ever seen outside Burning Man.
surprised crack is so prevalent at burning man. can’t say i’ve heard anyone mention it ever. mushrooms, sure, but crack??
Wait wait wait. You think there could be less-than-rigorous statistics on drugabuse.com? Impossible.
EDIT: I am further shocked to see that alcohol is mentioned by people who attend Chili Cook-Off. How can this be?
So “pills” are a drug?
This is not showing which drugs are most popular at different festivals. It is showing which festivals are most popular among users of different drugs.
And the methodology has…obvious limitations.
I don’t think I’ve heard of these music festivals. (I have hyperacusis and can’t go to any and don’t follow the news about the ones I’d like to be able to go to any more.) But you could probably learn something about Ohio, Michigan, etc. if you could track the e-to-t ratio.
So every mention of any drug is abuse? And they even say that the deaths were not all attributable to drugs (but they don’t tell you how many were). Was it one alcohol overdose and 14 cases of getting trampled by a crowd? I am pleasantly surprised that they even mention alcohol as a drug.
Pssst, you want a lungful of Dust?
Fun post, but not too helpful.
The number one drug at Burning Man, but far, is ethanol. It’s handed out like candy. for free. Really. next time you’re on playa, measure how long it takes to get a free drink, vs how long it takes to get gifted candy.
The number two drug is nicotine.
It seems like the number two drug used to be THC, but Nevada law enforcement has gotten pretty heavy handed on that topic.
I am confused about crack. I thought the most common stimulant in Black Rock City was crystal meth[*]. Stereotyping heavily, meth use seems to be disturbingly prevalent among a certain subset of highly active gay men [**]. Go to the right late night dance parties and you’ll see plenty of use.
But crack? Maybe I’m just biased because my very first day on playa my camp leader died of a cocaine-related heart attack, but I wonder if the all those posts are “DON’T do crack… here are some much better ideas !”
[*] I’ve certainly been stimulated by [Crystal Method][1] , but that’s different
[**] JUST BE CLEAR: I am NOT claiming any group is a bunch of tweakers/crackheads/whatevers. Certainly not typical gay burners.
[1]: https://www.facebook.com/thecrystalmethod
It’s also a proxy for size of festival.
If my festival has 50 people, and every single one of them posted about 'shrooms, that would be a pretty good indication that 'shrooms are big part of my festival. However, if only one in every thousand people at Burning Man posted about 'shrooms, Burning Man would handily out-rank my festival.
Butt crack probably - Burning Man is the nekkidest festival going.
actually, BM is a terrible place to score drugs. Commerce is forbidden. People doing during generic drug dealing on playa can get serious push back from the community. People generally only share controlled substances with people they know (with the enormous exception of ethanol).
Also, Undercover cops are out in force ( 6-12 during a typical day) and quite comfortable with entrapment ( the folks at Liberty Lounge, the ACLU camp have stories and stories). Thus, “providers” are justifiable wary of strangers.
Burning Man is a a fantastic setting for responsible drug use. The community tends to be incredibly supportive. You should always have your own ground crew if you choose to take flight, but Joe and Jane Random Burner have a long history of helping folks who’ve hit some turbulence along the way
i can testify about that. i’ve see PLENTY of butt crack on the playa!
agreed. booze, nicotine, pot = all readily MUCH more readily available on the playa. lots of mushrooms, ecstasy… that sort of thing. but harder drugs on the playa are such a bad idea i don’t know how they could be so prevalent in this “study”
If you go to the link, one of the points made is that alcohol is the number one drug mentioned at almost every single festival (notable exception: Marley Fest, for obvious reason).
It’s not what it was. In both good ways and bad. My use of the term “score” was not meant to indicate financial transaction.
No no no… Any use (no matter how responsible) of a scheduled “drug” is “abuse”, any use of a legal and regulated substance is just “use”. It’s not possible for “drug abuse” to apply to cigs and booze… just like it’s impossible to “use” wig or blow and not “abuse” it. All clear?
I think it’s only number one because all festivals have at least a few crack users and one festival would happen to have the most users purely by chance.
