420 blaze itwell it depends what drugs, some drugs don't really produce violent behaviour at all
420 blaze itwell it depends what drugs, some drugs don't really produce violent behaviour at all
possible that the overdose was the result of high doses of LSD analogue like NBOM or DOx, which are often sold as LSD. of course, this only reinforces the point that prohibitionist drug laws cause avoidable deaths.I personally lol'd at the apparent lsd overdoses, do they know how much money you need to overdose on lsd?? Its hypothesised lethal dosage is something like 2000 hits at once. Good luck mortgaging your home for that mind blowing experience.
According to the police their actions don't work as a deterrent:The high presence of police officers is to act as a deterrent for bringing drugs into the venue in the first place and it does serve that purpose well for the majority of the population because they don't want to risk the penalties.
Drugs can't induce violent behaviour. This is an equally true statement, since you're reducing the nuanced pharmacodynamics of millions of bioactive chemicals by making a blanket statement about some monolithic fictional entity called "drugs". My statement "drugs can't induce violent behaviour" while inaccurate misinformation, is relatively better and more accurate than to say "drugs can induce violent behaviour", since by number there are vastly more drugs that won't induce violent behaviour than those that will.Drugs can induce violent behaviour
That seems reasonable, but half that police presence is tied up outside the venue performing drug enforcement, the work of drug enforcement takes away from the visible police presence inside the venue, where violence is much more likely to take place.There were 100 officers for 18,000 people. I don't think it's overkill. You need a large amount of manpower to cover a large crowd.
It's socially acceptable and desirable for people to use a range of drugs at festival events, the policies of law enforcement should reflect this.Also, the idea of simply confiscating the drugs and stopping there without penalty has the moral hazard of everybody bringing in drugs without any impressionable consequences. It would not act as a strong deterrent if there was no penalty.
It's not a small number of people choosing to take illicit drugs at festivals. Many illicit drugs pose a lower risk of harm than activities that are currently legally permissible at festivals. You don't even need to take drugs at a festival (legal or otherwise) to be virtually guaranteed of harm, in various ways.The alternative option of having a lower police presence means a lower deterrent and less chance of drug detection for the greater majority of people which increases the risk overall. It is not worth trying to make the small number of people who choose to take the high level of risk to take a relatively 'lower' level of risk (which may not necessarily work at all), at the cost of 'encouraging' a larger number of people taking on more risks and dangerous behaviour than they otherwise would.