Letter to the Editor of Canberra Times – Published 07/01/2019
Frustration infuses so much of the media reporting of defiant young music festival goers. How many deaths before they get the message? Warnings from ambos, warnings from the cops, warnings from the organisers, warnings from the pollies shit scared of blame. Just don’t pop a pill! Don’t you get it that the reason they’re illegal is because they’re dangerous?
In contrast are the frustrated tweets of Dr David Caldicott, sick of being asked the same question about how pill testing saves lives: “there is a small group of Australians who find the concept very, very difficult. Without crayons, it really can’t be made much simpler.”
Of course you don’t die if you don’t do drugs so ban, ban, ban but not music festivals because that would hurt tourism, so blame defiant, disobedient, thick kids after something transcendental:
I’ve never experienced reality
like I have at a music festival.
It’s like a circus,
a wonderland,
a place for unconventional souls.
Bill Bush
President
Families and friends for drug law reform