In 2014, I was very much into that EDM and music festival scene.
I still remember my first rave at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, ‘Armin Intense Tour’. I was blown away by the amazing visual, live performances and the deep bass music. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and since then I was hooked.
Soon after I was at my very first music festival, VELD.
A lot of people I knew were there and so was Willard Amurao, an intern at the company I was working for at the time. I wasn’t close to Willard, we had spoken occasionally at the office and that’s how I knew of him. The festival was a lot of fun, I got to see some of my favourite DJs play including DeadMau5 and Armin Van Buren.
It was total bliss, I had the time of my life.
The next day at the office we were all called into a meeting. Willard had never made it back from VELD, he over dosed on a party drug and died. I couldn’t comprehend what had happened, that a 22 year old with his entire life ahead of him, set out to have a good time had died.
What happened to Willard could have easily been avoided and I knew exactly how. If I had learned anything from Chem 101 and watching Breaking Bad is that every chemical substance can be tested for purity, even molly (MDMA). A couple of clicks on Amazon and I had the very best drug testing kits at my disposal.
Next up I started posting in Facebook groups and my friends circle offering to test drugs for anyone headed out to a rave and I got A LOT of responses. Soon enough I had a table set at every music festival in the city with a simple sign that said TEST YOUR SHIT.
I found a lot of people were taking some nasty stuff without ever knowing about it.
What was sold to them as Ecstasy or Molly was often just bleach powder or even brown sugar! The scariest thing was how unaware people were of dosage and how much is too much. I don’t blame them, these things don’t really come with an instructional manual. But that’s no reason to give up our yearning for altered sensations, increased energy, empathy, and pleasure.
And yours truly made sure they got just that and nothing else.
The authorities at the music festivals didn’t like what I was doing, the cops didn’t either, I was told I was promoting drug use and had to shut down operations. Now I just go about preaching to people. I do however have a new appreciation for the Netherlands and their drug laws; instead of fighting recreational drugs, they have adapted a policy the rest of the world could learn from.
In the meantime, just test your shit. Before it hits the fan.
Read Chp 1 of the Halal Haram Ratio here: My Awkward Rishta Date
Read Chp 2 of the Halal Haram Ratio here: The Halal Haram Ratio Chp 2 – ‘Cannabis is halal though’