Tuning In for Chemistry: Setting up a multi-instrument mobile drug-checking lab at a 7-day psychedelic music festival

Background
 
The analysis of psychoactive drug samples provided by potential users to assess their actual content has been presented as a community-based intervention practice since the 1960s. However, in the last decade with the appearance of New Psychoactive Substances, this type of service is getting more attention and has been argued as an effective harm reduction strategy. The analytical techniques usually applied in situ (e.g., festivals and party venues) must possess specific characteristics such as being fast and easy to operate by harm reduction technicians. The use of reliable techniques such as High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) or Fourier Transformed Infra-red (FTIR), which makes possible the separation and identification of all components present in a mixture for further identification and quantification, is restricted to drop-in centres or well-equipped laboratories. The use of chromatographic and spectroscopic-based techniques in mobile laboratories at festivals or parties is desirable but presents several challenges for implementation.

Methods

Boom Festival is one of the major psychedelic transformational festivals of the world, happening every two years. Boom is marked by its artistic expression and freedom promotion. It gathers around 40.000 people from 160 different countries during a week in Castelo-Branco, Portugal. As in other electronic music events, many attendees of the festival use drugs during the event.Kosmicare is a non-profit organization that provides harm reduction services in different contexts. At 2023’s Boom Festival, a temporary laboratory equipped with an FTIR, HPLC, Ultraviolet-visible spectrometer and thin-layer chromatography system was assembled to analyze drug samples submitted by users to offer drug-checking service to festival attendees.

Results

In 2023’s Boom Festival edition, Kosmicare analyzed 942 samples and quantified 52 samples of MDMA, 21 samples of 2C-B, and 14 samples of LSD. More than 25% of the pills analyzed contained high dosages of MDMA (150 mg or more). A high rate of amphetamine and cocaine did not contained the expected substances but a mixture of lidocaine and caffeine. A diverse range of new psychoactive drugs were identified, from psychedelics such as 5-MeO-DMT or Ibogaine and stimulants such as cathinone derivatives to opioids such as oxycodone. During the event, monitoring data of the main findings was presented live on a screen installed in Kosmicare’s information hub.

Discussion

This presentation will discuss the challenges of setting up a laboratory in a harsh environment such as a festival and the definition of analytical workflow. The relevance of drug-checking services in drug monitoring and harm reduction intervention at large-scale events will be addressed. Boom Festival, Isomer Design, and Kykeon Analytics supported this intervention.