all the same things that are happening with the EDM scene in the USA occured in Europe and Asia during the late 90s to mid 2000s. The real reason the promoters are flocking from Europe to the USA is that the USA is geographically large, yet lacks a “European style” public sector in some regions so what local govt exists will hire out any large venue to anybody without asking too many questions about crowd safety, logistics etc at least until some bad incident happens.
It appears to be a backlash against binge use in Europe and rising domestic use in Asia that led to the purge against saffrole production in Asia during the mid-late 2000s and subsequently the rise in popularity of cathinones / NPS (as these are far easier to make using leftover chemicals from other industrial processes such as making paint, electronic components and other items not directly associated with hard drugs).
Of course that was a flawed way of dealing with the situation but having mixed European / Asian ancestry I can see why tolerance/decrim/legalisation wasn’t initially viewed as a valid option.
It is literally only in the last few years views are slowly changing and that appears to only have been fuelled by the tech boom making richer Asian nations like Malaysia and Singapore less worried about drugs culture being used as a distraction technique by a foreign invader (to the point they have quietly reduced or stopped use of the death penalty!).
Interestingly (and unfortunately) Indonesias people voted via a democratic referendum for the death penalty to return following a rise in drug related deaths and drugs tourism during the spell of tolerance; something that has not been repeated in MY and SG following their changes to enforcement a decade ago.
its not related to any state/popular religion as MY has just as many Muslims but retains its tolerance; and ID actually has a lower voting age than many European nations and is no less democratic than its former coloniser NL…
it might simply be that Indonesia is geographically larger; folk there more dependent on motor transport, what EDM events did happen may not have been held in the safest venues / areas as well as it getting the less profitable / more environmentally risky jobs from the tech boom (ironically many involving processing chemicals!) so they perceive the threat from drugs culture to remain stronger.
Closer to home Germany has far stronger laws against NPS and drugs culture as a whole in comparison to its neighbours and near neighbours (NL, DK, BE, FR , UK etc) as well as regulation of music events (dancing on Sundays remains forbidden in many regions; with Christians of all denominations plus the multi faith focus groups supporting this law!) – FR also has varying tolerance of EDM events; and both these countries have shifted their national focus onto coping with the global refugee crisis, possibly at the expense of tolerance of domestic hedonism on “cost grounds”.
I don’t think this is intentional but “austerity friendly” governments are unable or unwilling to provide the resources to cope with both at the same time.
