The new non-profit charitable organization This Must Be The Place has announced that it will be putting its resources behind preventing overdoses in Fentanyl-related drugs at music festivals, NME reports. The non-profit is known for its mission for preventing opiate-related deaths by giving out Naloxone, a medicine which, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, “rapidly reverses an opioid overdose. It is an opioid antagonist. This means that it attaches to opioid receptors and reverses and blocks the effects of other opioids.”
The non-profit is based around the idea that treatment is a better solution to the harmful effects of drugs than punishment. Its mission to prevent Fentanyl-related deaths follows statistics that roughly 150 people in the US die every day in overdoses relating to the drug.
The organization’s co-founders Ingela Travers-Hayward and William Perry spoke to NME relating to their intentions the group. While Travers-Hayward’s interest in the prevention of drug deaths started with her career as a music journalist, Perry’s connection with the group’s mission stems from his own personal experiences with substance use problems relating to music festivals.
Perry explains that “We would party really hard going to this festival, that festival, that was our lifestyle. Doing that led me into a whole lot of substance use problems.” These substance use problems led to Perry facing a ten year prison sentence. Now working as a recovery councilor, Perry wishes to provide people struggling with drug addiction the resources and help they need to recover and become healthy.
Travers-Hayward describes the thought process the lead her to begin making a change, beginning with noticing that during quarantine, “There were a lot of news stories about how people were doing cocaine and dying, and doing molly and dying.” Travers-Hayward and Perry were additionally concerned that the number of people dying would increase as lockdowns were lifted.
The non-profit has chosen to distribute the brand of Naloxone known as Narcan at various music festivals, at times struggling to get permission from the festivals. The success of the cause took off after they got permission to distribute the medicine at the Maple House Fest in Pittsburgh.
This Must Be The Place’s commitment to preventing drug-related deaths is one facet of a much needed fight to increase the safety of music festivals,. Earlier this year, the collapse of a stage in Spain’s Medusa Festival led to the death of one attendee and the injuries of dozens. Last year, horrifying incident of crowd-crushing at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival resulted in the death of 9 and the injuries of hundreds. In 2017, a deadly mass shooting of attendees at a Las Vegas Music Festival, the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, resulted in the deaths of 58 and the injuries of over 500.
Photo Credit: Mehreen Rivzi
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