Reluctant risk-takers: how law enforcement practices at festivals can obstruct safer drug use.
The International journal on drug policy November 1, 2025 Dara Ruane
Punitive policing at music festivals incentivizes people who use drugs to adopt behaviors that lower legal risk but increase health risk, even when they value responsible drug use and harm reduction. An ethnographic study across three policy regimes involving 52 days of observation, 23 practitioner interviews, and 54 festivalgoer surveys found that heavy enforcement made pre-measured, tested stashes useless due to gate confiscation, discouraged information-rich transactions with accountable dealers, and made informal drug checking legally dangerous. Vigilance for police undermined efforts to create a safe set and setting, and both uniformed and undercover policing blocked access to crisis support. The findings illustrate how tough policing creates perverse incentives that increase harm.