The Los Angeles Times is reporting that local emergency room directors are calling for an end to raves like last weekend's Electric Daisy Carnival. They say that they prepared for the 2-day electronic music festival as a "multi-casualty incident," or the same way they would respond to a disaster such as the Chatsworth Metrolink train crash. The rave last weekend led to at least 63 arrests for drug possession, sale of narcotics, trespassing, and drinking in public, and scores of traumatic and drug-related injuries.
The Electric Daisy Carnival was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum and Exposition Park and drew 185,000 revelers. The company organizing the event, Insomniac, said it was the largest party of its kind in North America. The Coliseum is located on state land and is operated jointly by the city, county and state commission. The venue's manager says raves like the Electric Daisy Carnival are twice as profitable as a USC game. Emergency room directors, however, liken the raves to government-sanctioned drug fests that unnecessarily risk people's health and put a strain on emergency services.
At least 120 people were taken to hospitals by paramedics, many for drug intoxication. At least two, one a minor, remain in intensive care for drug intoxication. Doctors say teens as young as 15 were admitted to hospitals. Ecstasy is the drug most associated with raves, and physicians say young people or juveniles will take it without realizing it can cause organ failure and death. Some teens at the event even take the drug accidentally. Doctors reported that one minor came to an area hospital in a coma after he drank water from another partygoer's water bottle, unaware that the water had been laced with drugs.
Source:
Keep raves out of the Coliseum, doctors urge (Los Angeles Times)
