The tragic death of a 22-year-old reveller at the weekend’s Rainbow Serpent electronic music festival highlights the inherent dangers of such events. While it is too early to speculate on the cause of this particular individual’s demise, there is no doubt that for many people illicit drugs are an integral part of the festival experience.

Music festivals and drugs have long been been inextricably linked. One only has to look at the glamorisation of 1969’s Woodstock, which remains fated in popular culture as much for the prolific drug use of its attendees as the groundbreaking music on offer. The rise of dance music – a genre seemingly best enjoyed when under the influence of powerful mind-altering substances – in the 1990s and 2000s only heightened the relationship.

But this not-so-innocent sort of revelry comes at a significant cost. There have been numerous deaths as a direct result of drug use at Australia’s various festivals over the last two decades and countless more overdoses.

Police have employed sniffer dogs at some events as both a deterrent and an enforcement strategy, while in more recent times the drug testing of drivers leaving the venues has become more common.

However, festival-goers who are determined enough to take drugs will still find a way, too frequently with disastrous results.

Harm minimisation initiatives, such as pill testing, are always raised when this issue enters the public’s consciousness.

But even if drug testing was permissible, it cannot simply be a means to giving the green light to risky or reckless behaviour.

Bendigo will soon host its biggest music festival of the year, with the line-up of Groovin the Moo announced yesterday.

No matter how many warnings are issued, whether they be by police, medical professionals or anti-drug campaigners, there will still be people prepared to roll the dice and consume illicit substances at the event.

There is no easy answer to the scourge of drug use in society. Some advocate for tougher criminal penalties, others for complete decriminalisation. Many accept drugs as a fact of life and seek merely to minimise their sometimes tragic effects.

One thing is for certain, we cannot just sit back and allow the destruction to continue unchecked.

- Ross Tyson, deputy editor