Some ecstasy pills six times stronger than others at Electric Picnic in Laois

The HSE has revealed its findings from a pilot drug testing programme at the Electric Picnic in Laois last month. 

The pilot drug testing identified three psychoactive substances never before detected in Ireland. It resulted in three alerts being made to festival goers warning of dangerous substances. 

In total 46 substances were surrendered for testing at the event in Stradbally during the HSE’s ‘Safer Nightlife’ harm reduction campaign from September 2 to 4. They included a new substance called 3-CMC which the HSE said can cause significant mental health problems.  

The aim of the pilot was to access, test and identify substances in a festival setting, alert the public, harm reduction services and onsite medics to any dangerous substances and gain insights on drug trends. 

The pilot testing scheme revealed the massive variation in potency of ecstasy tablets which were found to contain from 36mg to 235mg of MDMA. This meant that some tablets were six and a half times stronger than others circulating at the event. 

The pilot involved people anonymously surrendering substances in HSE bins which were rapidly analysed by the HSE National Drug Treatment Centre Laboratory using an on-site temporary laboratory. 

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In total, 46 samples of drugs were surrendered to the HSE over the three day period; which led to the HSE issuing three different risk communications relating to concerns around a particular MDMA product, high strength powders and crystals and the emergence of a new substance 3-CMC (a cathinone drug which can cause significant mental health problems).

Professor Eamon Keenan, National Clinical Lead: Addiction Services, Professor Eamon Keenan said: “While this report represents a relatively small number of samples numerically, we must recognise the importance of this pilot project and our findings. “The pilot is a real example of cross sectoral collaboration, where all agencies agreed on the need to collaborate to identify emerging drug trends, with an aim of protecting the health of people attending the event.

The HSE said the main findings of the pilot were:

46 samples submitted to the HSE for analysis 

74% of samples identified on-site at event using FT-IR (n=34)

17% of samples identified on further analysis in NDTC laboratory (n=8)

Drug content was identified in a total of 42 samples (91%) as part of pilot

4 samples remain unconfirmed

19 MDMA samples submitted (8 powders and 11 pills)

5 MDMA powders tested as almost pure MDMA

‘Ecstasy’ pills ranged from 36mg to 235mg of MDMA

12 novel substances submitted- 7 tabs, 4 powders/crystals and 1 tablet

3  new psychoactive substances identified not previously detected in Ireland (3-CMC, 5-MAPB, 4-HO-MiPT)

3 risk communications issued relating to high strength MDMA and the emergence of 3-CMC in white crystals

HSE National Drug Treatment Centre Lab team