Festivals, Drugs, the Recession and You

The season of beer-soaked grass and piss-soaked tents is upon us. The UK’s festival months in 2012 will offer nothing more than an extension of the country’s usual drinking hours. A selection of over-hyped reunion bands will besmirch the memory of the same headline slots they once made legendary in their heydays and everyone will call it glorious. All to the backdrop of a soggy camping trip that is more expensive than a holiday in Greece, only with less nudity and sunshine.

But none of that matters. It especially won’t be an issue when you’re on your back, staring at the sky, having thumped your own brain with a barrel of drugs more potent than is desirable or necessary to enjoy yourself. What drugs, though? Last week, The Guardian reported a bunch of interesting stats about what drugs go with what festivals based on the contents of police seizures. We took to the streets to see if we could find the MDMA-guzzling Reading teen, the corporate-ticket Glastonbury cokehead, the sloppy Download drunk or the fresh-fruit-smoothie-glugging Latitude Sunday paper reader.

We wanted to ask them about their drug habits and if they'd been affected by the recession, which the Guardian report seemed to indicate.

VICE: Been to many festivals?
Tariq, 18: Just Reading the once, last year.

What drugs, if any, did you do?
Ket, MD, pills, anything I could get my hands on. I was sick once but I felt OK straight away after. Ketamine is about the most amazing drug in the world. It’s like being in a little box on your own.

Has the recession affected how many drugs you buy?
Yeah, well, you know, dealers are getting a bit tight on the weed. Bags are getting smaller; it’s costing me a lot more money. As opposed to spending £50 a week, I’m spending about £80 a week. I’m meant to get about eight grams but I’ll probably get like, 6.1 or 6.2, about £60 worth, something like that.

Woah, metric system. Have you felt the pinch with other drugs?
Not so much with class-As, more with class-Bs.

Ross, 19, Paul, 25 and Jeremy, 23. Ross: Leeds.

Do any drugs?
Just weed and coke.

What are the main drugs at Leeds festival?
There was a lot of weed floating about. One girl I knew actually, took 2g of ketamine and went into some random guy's tent passed out and shit herself all over his tent. She was a good-looking girl… mixed reviews.

Has the price of your weed gone up since the recession?
Yeah. I don’t really smoke it any more.

Do you still take coke?
Rarely. It’s more expensive here than it is in Liverpool. Twenty, 30 quid more; it’s like £35 for a gram in Liverpool.

Lou, 23: I had some speed at Big Day Out last year and it was really, really bad speed. I had a terrible time.
Jemima, 22: Shit bands, too.
Lou: Yeah, and bogans everywhere. Someone always gets crushed to death at Big Day Out too, every year. That’s always kind of a downer.

OK. What sort of drugs do Australians take at festivals?
Jemima: In Australia it’s quite limited because everything except pills is so expensive. Coke is about $300 a gram.

Really? Jesus.
Yeah. So, people take spliff or pills or acid because it's a lot cheaper.

Have you retained your drug habits in the UK?
Lou: I smoke weed on an almost daily basis and experiment with most of the ones that won’t fuck up my life, like heroin or G.

G… HB?
Yeah, it’s possibly the easiest thing to overdose on ever. It’s really cheap and kind of big in Sydney.

Has broken Britain broken your habit?
[sighs] Certain things seem slightly more expensive, yes.

Like what?
Ketamine… and mephedrone.

Have you had money troubles with drugs?
One of my old flatmates came in a hundred quid short for rent one month. I think he was taking a lot of drugs, mostly mephedrone and ketamine, and his life priorities were out of kilter. He just kind of went: “I don’t give a shit enough. This house is a shithole.” Great for him, but we all got evicted.

Richard, 30: I went to Benicassim last year.

Was it good?
Great fun.

Take any drugs?
Never. I saw people take them, weed and pills. But I’ve never done drugs in my life. A friend of mine died when I was quite young from a drug overdose.

Are you OK to talk about it?
Basically, my friend did heroin was I was 18 at college. He was a pretty infrequent user. He did it as a one-off at a party and died. It was a long time ago, it’s a bit weird talking about it.

Raquel, 18: I’ve been to Back 2 Black and Rock in Rio back home. Back 2 Black is good rock music.

What’s the drug scene like at a Brazilian festival?
LSD, cocaine and MDMA, but it’s difficult to find MDMA in Rio.

What about weed?
Yeah, weed. Weed is not a drug [laughs].

Have you had any money problems with drugs?
No. But I have friends that are addicted and had to stop.

What drugs?
Cocaine. Drugs in Rio and Brazil are generally expensive. Even a tab of LSD is like, £15 or £20. In Brazil, people are using more drugs all the time.

How come?
Stars and people they like use them; groups like Os Mutantes.

What kind of music?
Rockers.

What drugs do they promote?
LSD and ecstasy… everything!

Molly, 21: I went to Glastonbury when I was 16. I’m from a really small town in Norfolk and I’d ever seen so many mad people in my life. It was the weirdest thing I’d been to. I went with some friends and we majorly misbehaved.

How did you misbehave?
One thing we did was legal highs. I think they were really novel at the time. I think they were supposed to be ecstasy in powder form. It was very strange. I don’t think they worked, to be honest.

Anything else?
It was the first time I did cocaine as well. It was really amazing. My friends were all doing ketamine. Everyone wanted to do it because it was new.

Did you?
No. I watched people on it who couldn’t walk and were speaking in slow motion.

Have you ever had financial troubles with drugs as a result of the recession?
A gram of coke is £50 now. But people haven’t stopped drinking with the recession, have they?

I guess not. Have you had any other bad experiences?
Outside Scala in King's Cross I had a cocaine black-out.I fell on the floor and was in hospital for two days. I was overly drinking to compensate for the drugs.

But no financial troubles?
No. But one of my friends… My friend actually died last year from a heroin overdose. He was only 19. His dad leant him like, £17,000 over three years and all his family are in debt now. I knew him really well, we flat-shared and I had no idea he did it.

VICE: Hey, which festivals have you been to?
Fran, 23: Download and Sonisphere, that sort of thing.

So, metal and rock festivals?
Yeah.

What sort of drugs do people take at those festivals?
Everyone smokes weed, I guess, pills as well. Every festival you go to somebody’s doing something. Weed and drinking as well.

Have you noticed the price of weed go up due to the recession?
Charlie, 23: I’ve noticed that dealers tend to be a bit more stingey. The price has stayed the same but what you get for your money has changed. With weed, I can’t cope with the harder shit… you can see it’s like, half of what you used to get. It’s not just in festival season, I think it’s kinda a year-round thing.

Do you think that’s specifically down to the recession?
Probably, yeah. This is their living and everyone’s making cutbacks and trying to cut corners.

VICE: What festivals have you been to?
Matt, 19: Bloodstock.

What kind of drugs are common at Bloodstock?
Beth, 19: Acid.
Matt: I saw a lot of weed and pills at Download.

Do you know anyone who’s run into financial trouble with drugs?
You could call it that; a mate of mine has been kicked out of his house by his dad. His dad put the rent up because his dad doesn’t work or nothing. He just sort of lives off his kids. He [the son] basically takes everything he can get hold of: weed, acid, pills. His dad’s a bit of a nutcase. My mate brought a drum skin back from a gig once and his dad took it into the countryside and stabbed it because he thought it was bringing evil spirits into the house. It was a Dark Funeral drum skin. He’s in like, £36,000 debt now.

What’s the score with his dad?
He had a pretty decent job, he worked in CCTV with the police and stuff. The son's doing alright, he works nights at Tesco and earns quite a lot of money. But the dad, he doesn’t do anything, he’s in loads of debt.

Kirsty, 26: I’ve been to Holidays In The Sun in Morecambe.

What’s Holidays In The Sun?
Like a punk festival; old school bands like The Addicts, UK Subs. More like old Oi! bands; Deadline, The Filaments.

Were there many drugs there?
Bit of billy.

Billy?
Speed.

Is it around a lot at punk festivals? Do you take it?
Yeah it is… I did, yeah.

Have you noticed the price of drugs go up with the recession?
No, ‘cos it’s the black market, isn’t it? It’s supply and demand; people find the money for it if they want it.

Lucia, 19: I’m from Slovenia, I go to Sziget in Budapest.

What genres of music is Sziget home to?
Alternative rock. Placebo played there.

Sounds great. What sort of drugs are there?
I dunno, every kind of drug. MDMA and weed, I think they’re the most common.

Are they more expensive over there?
It depends, maybe here more expensive.

Have you noticed the price of drugs increase with the economic downturn?
Yeah, weed has gone up by about £5 per gram in Slovenia. I actually stopped smoking it.

Heather, 22: I go to this thing called Kimberley Festival. It’s an invite-only thing, the music is at night but during the day there’s a lake you can swim in and do yoga classes. It’s very “zen”. About five to six hundred go. The music is like, folk, psy-trance, hard-house… We go all night.

What kind of drugs do the rounds there?
Marijuana, MDMA, acid… more of the psychedelic-y things.

Do you think the price of drugs has gone up since the recession?
No, no. Actually I suppose MDMA’s gone up a bit. It used to be about £35 and now it’s about £50.

Have you or any of your friends run into money trouble with drugs?
No, we’re all pretty poor anyway.

VICE: Hey guys, what festivals have you been to?
Lewis, 20: V.
David, 20: Yeah, V.

Are there drugs at V Festival?
David: There was a lot of weed. Quite a lot of sniffing going on.

Coke?
Probably coke, yeah.

Who was on the line-up when you went?
Oasis were headlining.
Lewis: Killers… I went twice. Eminem was there, that was pretty cool.
David: I’ve been Manchester, to big outdoor gigs, Oasis playing in Heaton Park and stuff. There was a lot, a lot of drugs going on. A lot weed and a lot of coke.
Patrick, 21: If you go to an electric festival with like Deadmau5, dubstep or drum ‘n’ bass stuff, you’re going to see a lot of MDMA. Whilst at the more indie- or folk-type festivals, you’re gonna get weed.

Fair enough, Mr Expert. What about the price going up due to the recession?
It depends on what the government's doing. If they crack down on supplier there’ll be a noticeable effect. I’ve not noticed a change in general, though. I could see it having an effect, people can’t afford to do things in a recession, so they replace that with drugs.

But drugs still cost money.
For me, and the people I know, the recession hasn’t changed whether they do drugs or not.

Des, 57: These days I mostly go to folk festivals, like Cropredy.

Have you been going to festivals for a while?
On and off for about 30-odd years. I went to Reading back in the 70s.

What kind of drugs are at the folk festivals?
Beer, that’s about it.

Not even a bit of weed?
Not that I’ve noticed.

So just good ale?
Yeah, real ale, most of them are sponsored by breweries.

What about Reading back in the day, what kind of drugs were floating about then?
Oh, lots of drugs then. Lots of dope, lots of grass, I guess there was other stuff but we never noticed it.

Do you think the recession will see an increase in drugs at festivals?
I think there’ll be more because, like anything else, when there’s a recession on the government like to emphasise how well they're able to deal with it. There’ll be a lot of seizures and it’ll be more oppressive. But you’ll also see more and more house raids, where people are growing stuff. It’s good, cheap publicity and shows the government are heroes and "on-track" and all that bollocks.

Will the price go up or down for drugs?
In theory, it should push the price up. People will be getting more drunk.

Have you noticed people getting more drunk at folk festivals?
No more than usual [laughs].

Follow Josh on Twitter at @joshuahaddow and Elise at @eliseminchenko