I keep meaning to ring Amnesty in London and ask them about their support but never get round to it.
I have a lot of respect for them and assume that they must have given permission for the organisers to associate them with the event, it would be good if Amnesty are able to spark an honest debate about balancing the “right to assemble” with societies duty to keep people safe from harm, and stopping excessive burdens on our public funded healthcare system.
Glade wasn’t cancelled simply because cops and nimbys didn’t like it (or it would have been canned years ago!), it was because the NHS were being overstretched with admissions due to suspected drug overdoses.
I knew of this years ago as I have sources who work within the NHS in frontline roles, I have also been a steward for a couple of smaller festivals in SE England and was also looking into the feasibility of organising a legal dance music event in East Anglia.
Although festivals have private Ambulances, many units do not have the specialist equipment, training, local knowledge or comms kit to properly blue light a casualty to the local Emergency Department – they can do basic first aid and life signs monitoring and some paramedic work but what actually happens is the private Ambulance simply takes the casualty away from the festival site, they are then transferred to the local NHS Ambulance for the region and taken to the ED.
From the transfer point, all the burden was being picked up by the NHS, and the licensing fees paid for the Emergency Services by the festival organiser don’t cover the costs if there are more than a handful of incidents. This is basically what caused the emergency services as a whole to raise the bill to Glade – the reason its viewed as “Police costs” is that normally the Police lead the management of emergency situations unless its a fire or medical emergency.
the problems had started as long ago as 2005 – I kept quiet about them as friends of mine were working at Glade and I didn’t want to make things difficult for them, but each year I got tipped off about more and more incidents and no improvement in the situation.
I think when mephedrone got added to the mix it was the last straw – its by no means the “killer drug” the media alleged it was but its effects in excessive doses are frightening and make people panic and seek emergency medical attention…
