TRIP! outreach workers and volunteers went to the World Electronic Music Festival (WEMF) last weekend and have finally recovered along with the other 5000 attendees! Well, almost recovered.
A good thousand people visited us at the TRIP! booth this year, most of which wanting to grab our popular ‘drug eyes’ poster and pocket a handful of condoms.
Many of the booth visitors wondered about having pill testing available, with one offering to leave his testing kit with us for the weekend! As TRIP cannot do pill testing, we encouraged him to continue testing his and his friends pills at his campsite, but to be careful of security walking around the site.
GHB made its presence quite known to the partiers and medics this year, with a number of people finding themselves waking up in the sawdust-filled medic building. There was even talk of a ‘wemf fad’ involving heart-monitor marks and stickers due to the sheer number of those walking around the festival with them.
The medics were careful not to kick anyone out of WEMF this year, nor let security know too many details of any overdoses to avoid the removal or arrests for seeking some refuge and medical attention. While some people may have benefited from a night (or afternoon or morning) away from the WEMF binge, no one wants to be afraid to go to the medics for help. Way to go Adam and crew!
Aside from the confiscated needle exchange supplies, the WEMF security treated us TRIPpers with a lot of respect and many of them came into the booth to personally thank us for what we are doing for the event.
Welland, ON was apparently thrilled at the festival livening up their city, perhaps due to the estimated $1 million put into their shops, restaurants and recreation facilities. Kevin wrote a review on Torontoist!