What is the drug of choice of young festivalgoers
Drug and alcohol consumption are commonplace at festivals including those aimed at younger attendees. However, there is little quantitative information about the extent of this consumption. This work investigates drug use at a school-leaver festival and how it compares to non-festival weeks. Influent wastewater was collected over three consecutive weeks from a location where a school-leaver festival occurs. Multiple liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods were used to analyse the use of illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals with abuse potential, new psychoactive substances (NPS), alcohol and cannabis. A method for human neurotransmitter metabolites was also utilised to show the population change and allow the drugs found to be normalised to a population. A total of 12 compounds were quantifiable methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, morphine, codeine, fentanyl, buprenorphine, oxycodone and nicotine. The NPS methylone was found solely over the festival weekend but at levels below the limit of quantification of the analytical method. The catecholamine metabolites vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) and homovanillic acid (HVA) were found over the entire three weeks, with identical trends - an increase over the festival weekend - indicating a population increase. HVA was used to normalise the drug mass loads to derive a population normalised mass load. Statistical differences using Hedges g showed large changes in the use of MDMA and MDA over the festival week. Smaller increases were also seen for alcohol and cocaine. The drugs of choice for the attendees of this school-leaver festival were MDMA and MDA.