Harder drugs, more medical calls at SnowGlobe
Rock Med officials at SnowGlobe at times asked law enforcement to leave the tent because patients didn’t feel comfortable. Photo Copyright 2016 Carolyn E. Wright
By Kathryn Reed
More medical issues at SnowGlobe this year could be the result of concertgoers using harder drugs.
That was the message Russell Liles, detective with South Lake El Dorado Narcotics Task Force, told the local drug coalition on Jan. 5.
Rock Med was in charge of all onsite medical issues for the three-day musical festival last month in South Lake Tahoe. The organization specializes in working at events like this. Exact numbers of how many people were treated have not been released.
The medical group also had personnel at the transit center in case anyone who got on a bus at the concert venue needed attention before going to their lodging establishment.
Barton Memorial Hospital handled the more serious cases, like drug overdoses. The emergency room saw 116 patients total from 7pm to 7am on the three nights of the music festival, of which one-third were estimated to be SnowGlobers.
“The majority of patients treated at Barton from SnowGlobe were due to weather exposure, alcohol use or substance use,” Mindi Befu, Barton spokeswoman, told Lake Tahoe News. “There was an increase in SnowGlobe patients when the Rock Med tent onsite at the event was no longer available for service.”
Molly – aka MDA and ecstasy – remains the drug of choice for this crowd. It makes people extremely thirsty. That’s why lines are long to refill water bottles.
The amnesty box was nearly empty. This is where people can dump their illegal drugs without any questions being asked or threat of arrest.
“I think they are getting better at smuggling drugs in,” Liles said.
People were using DMT (dimethyltryptamine), according to Liles. It is a psychedelic drug. He added this was the first year officers saw the hallucinogen ketamine (aka Special K). It’s an animal tranquilizer that has effects similar to PCP that is often used with ecstasy.
Officers noticed significantly less marijuana use this year compared to the past when it was almost like getting a contact high walking the grounds.
What alarmed Liles, though, was the number of minors cited for possession of alcohol – 104.
It’s estimated 35,000 people attended the Dec. 29-31 event on the ball field at Lake Tahoe Community College.
I kinda love how the number of attendees are inflated, that is 35k over 3 days but if some one attended . Days they count him as 3 attendees. So the true number is closer to 15k. There is no way they could get 35k people on that site all in one day.
Ha. Good times. Ya for tahoe south.
And this is what our city chooses to promote. Why not host or start our own winter x games.. The LT Blue event. Why can’t we promote recreational activities – not drugs.
This article could be headline bait.
Let’s do some simple math: Barton saw 116 cases during the three nights of Snow Globe and one third of those cases were from Snow Globe attendees; 116 times .33 is 38 cases. Now, we take the 38 cases (exposure, alcohol & substance) and divide by 35,000 to get .1%. Which seems pretty low to me.
I would like to know what happens on a typical July 4th weekend at Barton to get a better comparison.
Also, I am pretty sure the Harveys Summer Concert series has it’s share of alcohol and drugs involved based on my observations. Does that mean that we eliminate those concerts too?
You may want to devide the 35k by 3 as most people go all 3 days. So if we did that it was closer to 3%
I’m with Lia! There are many other positive events, let’s dump the dopers and stop this foolish promotion. Something that doesn’t feature dope and which doesn’t disturb the peace of hundreds.
This town loves drugs. Look at our police, superintendent, etc etc. many caught drinking/drugging/driving etcetera. If our town leaders love drugs so much it’s only natural the kids follow their lead.
Lia we do promote recreation events i.e. Two rides around Lake Tahoe that are well attended, the mountain bike festival in Meyers, Come up for air soccer tournament to name a few.
Good point Rock,
I had to get stitches last 4th…(hitting tree with face mt biking)…whoa….I had to wait 8 hours to be seen, it was so busy with ambulances, tourists and idiot drunk people. I was stitched up in the hallway bed, it was like an inner city ER there.