These are samples taken by scientists in 2019 when more than 200,000 visitors attended the Glastonbury music festival. The MDMA concentrations (the raw material for ecstasy pills) turned out to be extremely high in the week after the festival.
Need in toilets
In particular, the amount of cocaine in the water was so high that it disrupted the life cycles of the rare and protected eel species in the area, the scientists fear.
They urge festival-goers to relieve themselves in the on-site toilets in the future, as the drugs are believed to have ended up in the water through visitors urinating in public.
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Dan Aberg, a postgraduate student at Bangor University in North Wales who collected the data, said all music festivals are “undoubtedly” an annual source of illegal drugs.
“Unfortunately, the proximity to a river at the Glastonbury Festival means that any drugs released by festival-goers have little time to break down in the soil before entering the fragile freshwater ecosystem,” Aberg said.
Canceled due to corona
Due to corona, the music festival was canceled in both 2020 and 2021. Organizers hope the event will go ahead next year.
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