If you’ve been to a festival before, chances are you’ll have encountered drugs of some kind. Maybe you’ve had the odd spliff to Ian Brown, inhaled a couple of laughing gas balloons, or spent three days off your head believing your friends were knights of Cydonia before collapsing into a hedge and crying yourself to sleep. Or maybe you’ve just seen hordes of wide-eyed zombies walking around site.
Either way, there’s something important to consider if you or your mates are experimenting with drugs this summer: don’t drug drive. While getting off your face can be dangerous enough in some circumstances, if you’re behind the wheel at the same time the consequences could be devastating.
Aside from the very real threat of killing yourself, your friends or complete strangers, the legal consequences are severe. The police take drug-driving very seriously, as seriously as drink driving in fact, and they have a variety of roadside ways to find out if you’re under the influence. The penalties for drug driving are a fine, a ban and a criminal record. The fine alone is up to £5,000 plus there is the possibility of 6 months in prison.
Just think what £5,000 could buy you. 30 iPod Touches. 313 band t-shirts at the NME.COM store. An average of about 33 festival tickets, meaning you could go to one every week from now until April.
So if you’re planning on getting wasted this summer, whether on booze or anything more serious, make sure you know how you’re getting home. Designate a driver, buy train tickets in advance or get a group together for the bus - there are plenty of safe options. And remember, Drug Driving. Your eyes will give you away.
The average festival goer spends ’600 on their weekend in the field.- Fsetival punters spend an average of ’130 on alcohol and only ’60 on food over the coursee fo a weekend.
- 20% of festival-goers actually see less than six hours of music
- 141,000 will take a sick day after a festival this summer
- Glastonbury festival is the largest in the world, with 177,000 people hitting the site over the course of a week.
*Source: Yahoo Music
