83 arrested at music festival; 350 receive treatment

There was always going to be trouble at the Defqon.1 music festival, held in Sydney last weekend. Police were on to catching out drug smugglers right from the start, with industry calls for an end to sniffer dogs falling on deaf ears (the rationality for the call followed the death of James Munro who OD’d on three Ecstasy tablets when he panicked last year after seeing a pack of sniffer dogs). Indeed, at this year’s festival the police more than doubled their presence to over 200 officers.

Of the 20,000 punters who attended the event, seven were hospitalised for serious injury while 83 were arrested on drug-related charges.

Held at the Regatta Centre in Penrith, and now in its sixth year, Defqon.1 celebrates an array of electronic and trance music which is delivered across several stages over one weekend.

At last weekend’s festival, police conducted 372 body searches, discovering drugs on almost a quarter of them – including one guy carrying 250 MDMA pills. While only seven people were taken to hospital for drug- and heat-related complications, about 350 people in total received some form of medical treatment relating to drugs, heat, or both.  Michael Mastess