Following the death of two teenagers at Hard Summer festival this past weekend in Pomona, California, government officials in Los Angeles are considering outlawing music festivals on state owned land. The deaths of the two teenagers are suspected to be due to drug use. The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors are holding talks in order to ensure that tragedies like this do not occur again. Board member Hilda Solis said, “…more measures need to be considered to create a safe environment for all patrons and a zero tolerance for illicit drugs.” I couldn’t agree more.
Traditionally, Hard Summer is held on land leased from the county. Should this ban go into place, the notorious summer festival will have to move locations. In addition to this proposal, several other safety procedures have been presented to the Board of Supervisors to be considered for approval in the next two weeks.
Instagram recently has banned the hashtag “EDM” from being used on photos on the photo sharing app, claiming that it violated “guidelines around nudity.” They aren’t wrong, if you ask me. The company came under fire for banning the hashtag “curvy” last month. The company is currently working on ways to restore previously banned hashtags should they no longer violate company guidelines.
Frankly, I’m not sure why it took so long for government officials to pay attention how dangerous these EDM music festivals have become. These festivals are nearly synonymous with “excessive drug use” and I know several people who go solely to do drugs—not for the music. It is not to say that drug use is absent from festivals from Coachella or Governor’s Ball, but rarely, if at all, do you hear that a person died as a result of his or her drug use at one of these festivals. For example, at Coachella this past April, Sgt. Dan Marshall of the Indio Police Department stated that festival goers who were under the influence were “detained for their own safety…[until]…they sobered up, [then] we let them go.” This kind of action is absent from reports about Hard Summer 2015—only arrests were made.
In a side note, I’m not exactly sure what the county thought it was signing up for when it leased land to something called “Hard Summer.” What did it think the adjective “hard” stood for? The hard ground beneath the festival goers feet?
It was only a matter of time before these EDM kiddies were hit by more than their peers’ eye rolls. I’m glad Los Angeles is cracking down. It’s about time we stop glorifying “dying” as a result of drug use at festivals.
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