Screenshots via YouTube/Bunk Police
A video published on July 10 shows a dealer in a tent at a music festival crying as he confesses that the cocaine heâd been selling had fentanyl in it.âToday, for the first time, unknown to me, I had something that could really, really harm someone,â he says to the camera, âAnd I had no fucking idea.ââSomething I had came back positive for fentanyl,â the dealer says, hanging his head as he holds up a testing kit for fentanyl. The dealerâs identity is concealed through blurring and voice-changing.The two-minute piece ends with the dealer throwing out drugs in a porta-potty. Ultimately, he disposed of an estimated 50-70 one-gram baggiesâworth thousands of dollarsâaccording to The Bunk Police, which released the video.Auctor said fentanyl has been on Bunk Policeâs radar since 2013.âI think a lot of people in the scene would think an adulterated substance like this would come from outside of the cultureâsomebody that is just there to blindly profit off of them and leave the first day without being a part of whatâs going on,â Auctor said. âBut that wasnât the case.ââThis is somebody who dresses like them, talks like them, goes to the exact same events, and participates in the same way they do,â Auctor explained.What happened with the dealer at this festival is not a normal scenario for Bunk Police. But, Auctor said theyâd been getting âa flurry of emailsâ from attendees at a specific camping area about positive fentanyl tests in product from a dealer who was selling purported cocaine.He received a phone call that ended up connecting him with the dealer.âApparently, this dude is hiding in his tent trying desperately to get ahold of anyone from The Bunk Police as he's found himself in a world of shit,â Auctor wrote on Reddit. He said the dealerâs photo was already circulating on social mediaânot Bunk Policeâs doingâand people were âtrying to hunt him down.âAuctor considered sending out a description of the dealer in question through their text alert system prior to meeting up with him, but ultimately did not. âMob mentalityâ and the potential for false IDing are major issues that could come up in that scenario, Auctor said.âLuckily for him, he was able to reach me right before I sent out that alert.â The product the dealer had been selling as cocaine also turned up positive for meth.Bunk Police is currently seeking input from the communities it works within to determine what action should be taken should a similar problem come up again.âWe kept pandora's box mostly closed this time around, but it's clear we'll need to crack it wide open in the future,â Auctor said in his Reddit post about the incident.The dealer reportedly made contact with his source and "took care of itâ following the incident. According to Bunk Police, afterwards, he bought fentanyl-testing kits in bulk and distributed them throughout the weekend at the festival.VICE has reached out to Electric Forest for comment, which has yet to respond.Auctor said Bunk Police will be back at Electric Forest next yearâwhether itâs in an official sense or not.
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âPlease be aware. It doesnât matter if you know who you got it from. It doesnât matter if they know exactly where it comes from. Itâs not us; itâs something else, and this is a big problem,â the dealer says.The vigilante harm reduction group The Bunk Police released the video described above with the dealerâs permission. It was taken at Electric Forest in Michigan the second weekend of the music festival (June 28âJuly 1), according to Adam Auctor, founder of Bunk Police.âI thought it was important that people saw the type of situation weâre dealing with here, and the type of person weâre dealing with,â Auctor told VICE. The dealer disposed of the drugs after Bunk Police recommended he do so following multiple positive tests for fentanyl.Bunk Police sells drug-checking kits, including those that test for fentanyl, at events and online. Itâs one of the biggest drug-checking kit suppliers in the world. The group will show up at festivals with or without permissionâmeaning its members sometimes are kicked out by events and even risk facing charges.
At Electric Forest this year, the group employed a text-message alert system. It was set up to tell those who subscribed to it when the group was selling kits on site; alert if they were shut down by security; and, critically, to warn about adulterated substances when necessary. The group doesnât test drugs themselves, but tells people how to test their own substances.
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