Hey all-

Adam Auctor here, Founder of The Bunk Police.

We were all deeply saddened to hear news of the two unfortunate deaths at Lost Lands this past weekend which occurred despite the presence of both ourselves and Dancesafe onsite. We were both present at the event for a reason - due to the demographic of attendees and the location in close proximity to one of the opioid crisis epicenters (Columbus) we considered Lost Lands to be the highest risk event of the summer. Unfortunately it seems we were correct.

I would like to dispel some rumors making the rounds and also give you a little insight into our role at the event and what can be done to improve moving forward.

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Credit Where Credit is Due

Before we get into some of the heavier aspects of this message, I would like to give Lost Lands credit for one thing in particular:

Prior to the event, Lost Lands went out of their way to contact local law enforcement and ask for permission to allow Dancesafe, our sister organization, to operate without restriction. This is one of the first times that free testing has been made available at an event East of California and outside of Detroit. Events balk at allowing these services for many reasons, valid or not, including concerns that insurance underwriters will drop their coverage or increase premiums as well as somewhat unfounded fears that a piece of problematic legislation called the R.A.V.E. act may be applied unfairly.

Making the move to allow free testing took both foresight and courage on the part of Lost Lands and they have gained our respect for leading the music festival industry in the right direction. It is our hope that others will follow in step.

That being said, they did pull back last minute and removed the second Dancesafe booth from inside the venue leaving only the location in camping. Not a great move there as Dancesafe no longer had access to the bulk of the problem, but overall we're giving them a somewhat hesitant thumbs up for their efforts.

Remember - they didn't HAVE to allow any harm reduction at the event and they did so anyways.

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Shutting Down the Rumor Mill

The first rumor I would like to address is the distribution of fentanyl laced bottled water at the event. I'm not sure how this rumor started, whether it was a troll getting their kicks from scaring people or someone misunderstanding / misusing our kits - but it is not valid. If any of you have information about this rumor and how it started please contact me directly ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])) so we can do our best to prevent misinformation like this from spreading in the future.

The second rumor has to do with our volunteers being arrested in front of the sound camps late Saturday night. Although we were confronted by security (more on this later) nobody was arrested.

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Our Role at Lost Lands 2018

---Our BUNKBOT fentanyl / dangerous substance alert system was running at full capacity over the course of the weekend. We received several reports of fentanyl adulterated cocaine early in the weekend resulting in our ability to confirm these reports and send out the following message to over 1,000 attendees on Friday afternoon:

"FENTCOKE ALERT! SOLD IN GREEN BAGGIES AND ALSO POSSIBLY ALUMINUM FOIL INSIDE OF CLEAR BAGGIES. PLEASE text this number IMMEDIATELY w/ pics of the baggie if you have a positive fentanyl test."

It is our hope that this message spread through the community and lead to at least a few individuals discarding adulterated substances and / or making informed decisions.

More info about BUNKBOT here.

---We were able to send volunteers into nearly every campsite on the grounds throughout the course of the weekend, distributing thousands of tests overall.

---Due to the presence of fentanyl laced cocaine on the grounds as well as constant reports of ODs (confirmed by plenty of ambulances leaving the event) we decided to work outside of our normal boundaries - setting up in front of the sound camps late on Saturday / early Sunday morning. After about a half hour distributing kits at this location we were confronted by security.

Strangely enough, the initial confrontation had nothing to do with test kits or vending. Security observed someone gifting one of our volunteers a bag containing an original Bunk Police grassroots hat from 2012. These are relatively sought after, so he was extremely excited... security thought it was a big bag of drugs so they rushed in on ATVs / golf carts, put several people up against a fence, and thoroughly searched them. I imagine this moment is what someone misconstrued as our volunteers being arrested. Suffice to say, no illegal items were found, and nobody was arrested.

After the situation calmed down a bit security realized what we were actually doing, changed gears, and threatened to confiscate several hundred Fentkits, a cart full of reagent kits, and throw us out of the event for unauthorized vending. In the end they decided that they "didn't have time" to go through with it and let us leave with our signage and supplies.

---Beyond the positive fentanyl tests, between ourselves and Dancesafe we found NBOMes posing as LSD, plenty of amphetamines / meth posing as cocaine, alpha-pvp and other cathinones posing as MDMA, a good amount of very questionable non-reactive ketamine, and the same sticky incense posing as opium that has been making the rounds at festivals for years. There was also someone selling an inert / unknown powder as multiple different substances. Whatever people asked for, I guess, he/she sold them this.

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Request for Contact Information

- Greg Jones (G-Jones) broke rank and sent out a message on twitter yesterday championing our cause and calling out events for disallowing the presence of harm reduction organization such as ourselves and Dancesafe.

- Jeff Abel (Excision) has made statements about addressing many of the issues that occurred at Lost Lands 2018.

We are interested in speaking with both of these artists and hearing their thoughts on the matter at hand. We would also like any advice that they may have for contacting their fans, other artists, and appealing to event promoters. If you have contact information for either of these two gentleman please let them know that we would like to have a private discussion with them at their convenience. They can contact us through email ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])). Nothing said in these discussions will be mentioned to the media and we will use the utmost discretion in addressing both their concerns, and our own.

If you are an artist or event promoter who is interested in helping your community learn and grow - please contact us directly ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])).

In the end, it will take the cooperation of mainstream artists as well as the fans that they're able to reach in order to change the minds of event promoters. We've been throwing rocks at the brick wall promoters have put up for the better part of a decade and we've barely made a dent. Artists, who these events could not exist without, possess the wrecking ball necessary to knock down these walls and start building a new community based on rationality and awareness instead of fear and feigned ignorance.

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A Worldwide Issue

This year is a defining moment for harm reduction, worldwide:

-Two deaths at Mutiny festival in Hampshire resulted in the U.K. home office stating that they "will not stand in the way" of drug testing at clubs and festivals.

-Two deaths at Defqon festival in Sydney resulted in a public outcry to allow testing at events including a successful trial at Groovin the Moo this past May.

-Seven deaths at Vietnam Electronic Weekend (VEW) in Hanoi just this past Sunday prompted the Vietnamese government to ban all EDM events.

-Of course, we had our own overdose incident this past weekend at Lost Lands, resulting in two dead and one person wandering the steets naked.

So the question has to be asked - what are we going to do about it? Sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened or take steps to make a CHANGE?

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Catching Up

We're still struggling with allowing harm reduction to exist at events while we watch Canadians bring a full laboratory including an FTIR spectrometer to events like Shambala and Brits bring their own battery of professional lab equipment to events across the U.K..

Our partners in Spain (Energy Control), Poland (S.I.N.), Slovenia (Drogart), and Norway (Emma Sophia), have been on the cutting edge of harm reduction for well over a decade and we've worked closely with each of them for much of this time.

Energy Control has offices in Barcelona and Madrid that allow people to walk in, present their substance for evaluation using advanced lab equipment, and receive a printout stating the contents of the substance along with information about safe use. This is funded by the Catalan / Spanish governments. Drogart allows the same. They are funded directly by the Slovenian government.

Members of our organization have spent months in Barcelona learning from Energy Control over the years (this is where we helped develop the tech for our groundbreaking thin layer chromatography kit). I personally spent a full year in Ljubljana helping to develop our video reaction database, which allows users to watch verified-pure samples react to reagent test kits in HD on youtube. So far we have over 1,000 videos available and an Android app to sort them.

These tools are used by more people outside of the U.S. than Americans themselves.

What I'm trying to say is that the U.S. has the ability to take harm reduction to the next level... but we just aren't willing.

It's time.

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Moving Forward

-We will have a heavy presence at both Resonance (who contacted us after hearing about the Lost Lands incident and has given us full access to the event and a booth) and also Imagine (who has not answered any of our calls or messages). We will have BUNKBOT running at both simultaneously.

In order to sign up for BUNKBOT, text "bunk" to 555-888 and go through the prompts to sign up for the event(s) of your choice.

-We will be creating a 501(c)(3) non-profit specifically to run BUNKBOT over the course of the winter and are planning to apply for grants in order to expand it significantly. Our goal is to reach all events in the U.S. and hopefully, through the creation of our own software, other countries as well. Our stretch goal is to allow sorting and reports targeted by geographic location - this will allow us to apply this system to urban and rural areas, focusing on those hit hard by fentanyl adulteration in heroin, cocaine, opioid painkillers, and benzodiazepines, as well as less deadly substance adulteration issues. This summer was a successful test run. Those of us who had a hand in creating the system are beyond confident that this system is capable of expanding and making a measurable change in our communities. If you have technical expertise that could be applied to this endeavor, or advice on attaining grants and other assistance, please contact me directly here ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]))

If you have other skills that may be valuable, or any pertinent information for us, please don't hesitate to reach out.

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That's all I have for now.

Stay Stellar,

-=Adam Auctor=-

Founder - The Bunk Police - Bunkbot - Probitas Inc (U.S.) - Veritas Inc (Europe)