safety

Safety Dance: Covid Harm Reduction for the Rave Scene

/ Hilary Agro / Leave a comment

No one wants to talk about this. We all hate it. We’re tired. Believe me, I feel that tiredness in my bones. And I know you’re busy and overwhelmed, so I’m taking on the labour of making this as straightforward as possible so you don’t have to figure it all out yourself. And I promise I’ll make your experience of reading this as joyful as possible, to show my gratitude for you reading it at all! (Skip to the goods here if you’re already sold and just want the best practices.)

Because as tired as we are, we can’t live with our heads in the sand. That’s some conservative, climate-denying shit that we’re not on. We’re building caring community, here. We love each other, and we want to keep each other safe so we can party til we’re old and hobbling around like sparkly cryptkeepers.

And the best part is, we already have deep traditions in our community around keeping one another as safe as possible while still being debaucherous hedonists. And there’s nothing I want more than to be able to facilitate all our various sins and perversions. We can just do it safer than we are now is all, and honestly without all that much effort!

I love keeping myself and others safe as a ‘fuck you’ to the systems trying to kill us all for profit

Drugs and sex come with risks, but harm reduction is so embedded in the culture (our niches, at least) now that we barely even notice the behaviours we have normalized to reduce those risks–indeed, taking care of each other is part of the fun. Here’s a clean straw for you, my love. Have you drank water yet tonight? Let me arrange these free condoms in a big goofy smiley face at the kink party.

I have embraced the role of rave mom. I have rave mom’d so hard I have become a rave elder, a rave grandma with little 30-year-old rave grandchildren, out there with GHB syringes and magnesium. I love you, I care about you, and I am a collector and sharer of information. So I will keep you as safe as you’re willing to consent to.

I am so passionate about rave safety and harm reduction that I’ve evolved beyond “drink water” and “don’t mix ketamine and alcohol” (though those are obviously important). If anyone doesn’t feel safe at the party, then the party needs work. That includes our Palestinian (an article for another day, though start here to learn more) and disabled/vulnerable comrades, and the children in our community that depend on us to keep them safe.

I need to get real for a second here, so please take a breath and open yourself up to the information I’m about to share. I offer it as a gift, because I care: covid is still very dangerous and it is still hurting people. I personally know three people now who are suffering from Long Covid, two of them from the rave scene in Toronto, one of whom aquired it in August 2023. None of them were disabled or immunocompromised before they got it, but their lives have been completely upended since.

As we’re all realizing in more ways every day, colonial and for-profit institutions are not built to help us, and the few protections that we have are failing as capitalism crumbles and neoliberals privatize everything. So it’s up to us to build a culture of community care, and keep each other safe. Vaccines help—please get an updated vaccine!—but they do not completely prevent Long Covid. Covid is airborne—it spreads through the air, not just through droplets. There are things we can do to lower the risk of giving or getting covid, while still partying as much as we like.

Make masking hot again

“I view COVID mitigations as part of a consent culture,” says my covid-safety collaborator Ryan Utter, who once lovingly but firmly dommed me into eating a plate of ribs at a festival because I was too high to deal with the bones but needed sustenance in my body before a night of dancing. “We want to go out, and we should be able to trust that buildings (and organizers) follow regulations and best practices for indoor air quality. We can’t consent to risks we don’t know about, so if a party isn’t upfront about the ventilation (or lack thereof), CO2 levels, presence of HEPA and their clean air delivery rate, people cannot consent to the risk.”

As longtime harm reductionist Alex Betsos pointed out to me, clean air precautions make the whole party experience better anyway. “I think we have this idea that covid precautions have to suck, and that’s really not true. Like, would you not rather be on a dancefloor with lots of space to dance, good ventilation & UV lighting than the inverse? The feeling of being drenched in sweat b/c you walked into a nightclub with shit ventilation is so visceral.”

Just like with any form of harm reduction, you don’t have to take an all-or-nothing approach if some of these aren’t practical for your parties at the moment—the more of these protocols you use and strive towards, the safer your events will be!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR PARTIES MORE COVID-SAFE

  • Open the windows. I can’t stress this enough. All of them, or as many windows as you can. Put signs on the windows saying “do not close.” Tell people in the event invite that you’ll be leaving windows open for covid safety, and that if they get chilly, to put their jacket on or bring a cozy blanket.
  • Invest in HEPA filters and/or Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. Plug-in HEPA air purifiers will filter out viruses from the air. Have one in every room, and 2-3 if the room is very large.* This is an investment (depending on the size of your parties, around $300-600 initially, then $150-300 a year for replacement filters), but it’s one that should become as standard as offering water and earplugs. Less expensive and often more-powerful options like Corsi-Rosenthal boxes (a box fan + MERV-13 furnace filters) can also be constructed easily and re-used over and over. Consider fundraising at the party to buy filters if your margins are super tight! I like Levoit, get in touch with me if you want help researching which filter to buy. HEPA filters and CR boxes should become standard party equipment in our scenes, as essential as speakers and decor. As a bonus, they work as fans to cool people down! Decorate them with lights and paint to add to the ambiance. For more on deciding which to use, see below.
  • Encourage people to wear masks. You do not have to make them mandatory, but simply writing in the event description and having signs saying “masks are encouraged, keep each other safe!” goes a long way. 
  • Offer masks as people enter the party. N95/N99s are ideal, but these are of course expensive, so KN95s are a good next bet, and ASTM-3 surgical masks are much better than nothing. You don’t have to make them mandatory, but if people know they’re offered and normalized, more people will be likely to wear one.  
  • Set up a testing table where people can test if they want to, and encourage people to. This can go a long way – it has worked to catch cases at parties before! If you feel that you can, you can also make testing at the door mandatory – this requires a bit of planning and volunteers, but it’s one of the best ways to keep everyone safe. Alternatively, for smaller parties, ask everyone to test in advance and post a photo of their negative test in the group chat or event page.
  • Venue ventilation: When you’re looking for venues, ask the venue owner if they have an HVAC system that will deliver fresh outdoor air, if it will be turned on during the party (some are set to automatically turn off at night) and if they have upgraded the HVAC filters to MERV-13. If they say yes, ask for specific details. Try to go with locations that do these things. Even if the location doesn’t have all elements and you end up having to choose that location, the more that organizers express that it’s a concern, the more we normalize the idea that it’s what we want.**
  • When weather permits, have your parties outside! Get creative, ask your community for recommendations. Ask people to help by bringing shade/rain structures if it’s looking like weather.
  • Stay home if you’re sick: Tell people to please not attend the party if they have any cold symptoms or are feeling unwell. Generally in our culture, we should be encouraging people stay at home any time you are sick, and test every day that you have cold symptoms (sometimes people test negative for a couple days, then get a positive!).
  • CO2 monitoring: People exhale CO2, so monitoring CO2 with a handheld device can give you an indication if the ventilation of the space is adequate. Outdoor air is around 450ppm, and if CO2 stays below 1000ppm, ventilation is generally considered adequate. But we’ve seen CO2 levels approach 4000ppm at some parties. 4000ppm means that 9.4% of the air in each breath you take was previously inside someone else’s lungs. Since COVID is spread by aerosols generated when people breathe, talk, shout, sing or sneeze, this level of CO2 indicates that aerosol-laden air is not being replaced by fresh air and the space has become high-risk. Opening windows, adjusting the HVAC system or adding air filtration are all valid responses to poor CO2 levels/poor ventilation.
  • UV disinfection: There is new air disinfection technology on the horizon – notably far-UV (UV light at 222nm which deactivates viruses but is safe for skin/eyes). Some members of the community are already experimenting with deploying these devices, so keep an open mind if they approach you with offers to use them at your parties. They are safe and they work! As a friend pointed out, they also look dope, like they were MEANT for raves.
Corsi-Rosenthal boxes made for a party collective

Thank you for reading this. This is disability justice – you’re doing it. As a party organizer, you occupy an important role in the community, and using it to keep people safe helps create a culture where we can withstand infrastructural collapse as we transition from colonialism/capitalism into systems that don’t suck.

If you’re in Toronto, I am absolutely willing to be the anti-covid fairy at your party, just ask. I’ll bring signs for the windows and make up a whole elaborate medieval bit where I’m jousting invisible viruses or something, whatever you need. Ryan Utter is also willing to consult about air cleaning and ventilation options.

I am a community organizer, low-income PhD student & mother of two young children. If you appreciate the labour that went into this article, consider sending me and my kids some masks, HEPA filters, diapers or books, or just a cash tip 🙂

With great thanks to my collaborators on this piece, Ryan Utter and Rine Vieth!

Additional info for superstar organizers who want more:

*Ideally “do the math” to ensure the combined clean air delivery rate (CADR) is appropriate for the size of the space and occupancy (we can help with this).

**Note that ventilation requirements are set out in the provincial building codes, but HVAC systems are often not run as designed (i.e. limiting outdoor air intake to save energy costs). Where adequate ventilation does not exist (like in a warehouse space) employing stand-alone air filters and opening windows becomes even more important. 

How do I decide between Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, and HEPA filters?

The main factor is cost. CR boxes are less expensive, but a higher level of effort, and they are bulky and loud. But they DO delver more clean air, so that’s a big advantage, especially in large spaces. Someone also needs to spend a few hours building them and then replacing filters once a year. So HEPAs are great and much easier to use/move around if you have the money, or are short on volunteers to make CR boxes.

Alright, let’s talk about GHB: A user’s guide. 

/ Hilary Agro / 23 Comments

When it kicks in, it feels like meeting an old friend for the first time. – Daniel, 34

Few drugs are as misunderstood and stigmatized as GHB (except for acid, the king of misconceptions). GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), also known as simply G, is a central nervous system depressant that comes in liquid form, drank in doses of around 2 or 3 mL. It makes you feel relaxed, warm, sometimes tingly. It’s popular at raves and parties, mixes delightfully with psychedelics and is a pretty well-known sex enhancer.

It’s also a problematic drug in the Toronto party scene right now. Ask any paramedic what causes the most issues (aside from the obvious, alcohol) and they’ll unequivocally say G. I know this because I did ask a bunch of them for my research—initially assuming, based on the media hysteria around it, that they would say MDMA. Nope: it’s G. Event organizers hate it because although deaths are extremely rare, it does usually cause the most visible, paramedic-and-police-attracting problems when someone overdoses and passes out. The reputation it has for being dangerous, while frequently exaggerated, is not totally unfounded—it’s a tricky substance to dose and is especially dangerous when mixed with alcohol, a combo of factors that make it a ticking time bomb for careless, drunk bros. Last year, some of Toronto’s best and most caring party organizers were forced to temporarily shut down a beloved and usually very responsibly-attended ongoing event series as they reckoned with the legal and logistical fallout of a near-fatal overdose. I was there when it happened. It wasn’t pretty.

It’s also well known (especially among people who don’t use party drugs) as a date rape drug. While this is true, it’s not the reason that most GHB is bought, sold and consumed. (It’s also important to remember that the number one date rape drug is alcohol. And it’s even more important to remember that drugs don’t cause sexual assaults, people [and rape culture] do. And unlike guns, drugs aren’t specifically designed to hurt people.)

So yes, absolutely, GHB has partially earned its reputation as a troublemaker. However, G has some significant positives—if it didn’t, no one would use it and it wouldn’t be such a big damn problematic deal in the first place. So, look, it’s time to stop talking about drugs as if they’re just sinister little omens of risk and danger. Information on them is so bogged down in prejudice and “Danger! Risk! Doooooom!”-style rhetoric that it’s pretty much useless for actual users. Recreational drugs are fun—that is the definition of ‘recreation’—and people enjoy them because they bring a lot of benefits to their lives and are mostly harmless when used correctly. There. I said it. Apologies for all the broken monocles that popped off in shock.

This really shouldn’t be so controversial. If you want drug users to listen to you in the first place, you’ve gotta acknowledge their actual experiences. Which is, drugs are fucking fun. Literally anyone who uses them could tell you that (including alcohol users if they would admit that they’re using a drug) but we all act like acknowledging it would mean that everyone would immediately quit their jobs and get high all day.

Anyways, back to G. So, as far as we know, when used properly, GHB is actually one of the least harmful drugs. In fact, it appears to be downright benign. I haven’t been able to find any sources indicating long-term negative side effects, and believe me, the anti-drug warriors would be throwing stacks of photocopied negative articles from the rooftops if they existed. G is also, as far as we know, much less likely to be adulterated with other substances than powder or pill drugs are. Which in the age of fentanyl, is a pretty significant plus.

People use G because it feels like a mild combination of alcohol, MDMA and weed. Importantly, the biggest upside users cite is that unlike with many party drugs (looking at you, alcohol and MDMA), there’s no hangover of any kind to worry about with GHB. They take it, they dance a bunch, they get some sloppy make outs in, they go home, and they get up the next morning feeling fine. For those responsible users, what’s not to love?

Quotes from GHB users online:

“It mimics the effects of being buzzed on alcohol but you also have a nice euphoric push and everything feels nice so it’s a nice social drug at low doses.”

“GHB is amazing. Effects are similar to alcohol, but with more euphoria, less stupor, no nausea, no hangover. It makes you hungry and horny though. Completely replaced alcohol for me.”

“The buzz – very very horny, very euphoric – I would have extremely intense washes of intense body euphoria. When mixed with a stimulant the euphoria is incredibly intense.”

“GHB is the most wonderful drug I’ve ever done. When people asked me what it was like, I would always tell them ‘it makes you feel like the most popular kid in high school.'”

So G is basically a miracle drug for those who’ve figured out how to use it properly and no more than once or twice a week. But: “when used properly” is the tricky part. That’s where everything can fall apart, and is the reason G is the bane of every festival medic’s existence.

In the end, we can go back and forth forever about whether it’s good or bad, safe or dangerous, but the reality is that enough people have decided that they like it that they’re going to keep doing it and it’s going to keep being a thing at parties. And so, below, compiled from my ethnographic research on harm reduction in the rave scene (interviews with users, participant-observation at events, scouring peer-reviewed articles and other sources, generally being a huge nerd, etc), here’s some tips for how to party more safely with G. A good “spirit guide” (see here, page 100) will ask you questions about all of the factors below so they know how much to dose you. If you’re dosing yourself and you’re not willing to follow these guidelines, just don’t use it. Put the vial down. In fact, maybe think about not using any drugs if you feel you’re not up to the task of being careful about how you use them. Drugs are fun, but they are not toys. You can get badly hurt if you’re careless.

NOTE: These instructions will seem pretty cavalier to some, but they reflect the principles of harm reduction, which means I know I can say things like “don’t mix with alcohol, period” all day long but that’s not going to help people who are gonna do it anyway, so I might as well be straight about how to minimize risk while doing it.

NOTE ALSO THAT THE BELOW APPLIES ONLY TO GHB, NOT GBL. Know what you’re taking.

GHB User Guide:

1) DON’T MIX WITH ALCOHOL. Seriously. Like a single beer at most, but even then, you really shouldn’t mess around with alcohol + G together unless you know your tolerance extremely well. Be very careful. If you’ve already had a couple drinks, leave at least an hour or two before dosing with G. If you’ve already had several drinks, just stay on that train and wait to play with G another night. (Remember, you shouldn’t even really need to drink at all if you’re gonna do G—it does everything alcohol does, minus the hangover. Except, fair warning, it doesn’t taste delicious. It tastes like salty shit. And yeah I know beer is amazing, but so is not passing out and going to the hospital.)

2) Don’t mix with ketamine either, or opiates, or any CNS depressant, unless you want to risk blacking out and unceremoniously barfing all over yourself and your friends, who may not be smart enough to put you in the recovery position so you don’t aspirate on your own vomit.

3) Start low til you know your dose. Everyone’s threshold is different, and an effective dose for each person is different. Because it’s liquid (and unregulated—thanks, prohibition), you also don’t know how strong it is until you get familiar with a batch. Around 1.5-2 mL is an average starting dose to feel effects, somewhere between 2 and 4 mL is the sweet spot for most people. Body size matters for dosing G; some bigger/taller people with naturally higher tolerances have to take up to 5 mL for a good high. For others, 4 mL is enough to make them puke. A too-high dose has the universal effect of making you pass out into an unrouseable sleep for a few hours, which will scare the shit out of your friends. But since different batches vary, it’s impossible to say ahead of time exactly how much is a proper dose from a new batch. Finding your dose requires patience and doing some of the same batch a few separate times in safe environments. Don’t go for broke on day one. Just as with any drug, you have to build a relationship with it and get to know how it interacts with your body.

4) Re-dosing is very tricky. Don’t re-dose before at least 90 minutes have passed. Preferably two hours or more, and closer to 2.5-3 hours your first few times. The less time has passed, the smaller your re-dose should be, and it should always be less than your initial dose. An okay rule of thumb is to not re-dose while you still feel at all high, but even if you don’t, be careful as you don’t know how much is still active in your system. Knowing your own ideal re-dose timing is another highly individual thing that you have to figure out slowly and very carefully.

5) Be conscious of how much food is in your stomach. If you just ate a big meal, your threshold dose will be higher than if your stomach is totally empty. (This is different from most drugs, but similar to alcohol.) It’s a very good idea to have eaten at least some food before you do G.

6) Trust your friends who are responsible and knowledgeable, but beware anyone who’s dosing you for the first time without asking how much you’ve had to drink, or having a conversation about how much you want to be dosed. They are being fucking careless. Bad spirit guide! No! Put the G down, you have not earned the right to dose your friends!

7) Use pre-measured vials (most head shops sell these) or a liquid syringe (available at pharmacies) to dose. This way you get consistency and accuracy in your dosing.

8) Don’t use it every day. No negative long-term side effects from GHB use have been established (yet), however, like almost any drug, GHB can be psychologically habit-forming if used too often, and (unlike many drugs) can cause physical addiction and withdrawals if used multiple times a day.

BONUS STEP:

8) Call your congressman/member of parliament and yell at them to legalize and regulate recreational drugs so we can have actual adult conversations with each other about how to use them properly without wading through a swamp of propaganda, prejudice and unregulated substances.

The main thing to remember is that the strength of G’s effects vary widely from person to person (and even from night to night depending on how much food you have in your stomach). The line between “THIS FEELS AMAZING!” and puking and/or passing out is a pretty thin one with G. So unlike with some easier drugs like MDMA, there’s no idiotproof guide to getting a great, safe high from day one. Starting slow and getting to know GHB is essential to be able to sustainably have fun with it. You need to woo her. Be a gentle lover with GHB. Get to know her ins and outs, how she works with your body. Don’t just stumble in and nail her without thinking. No one will have a good time.

This may sound like a lot of work, but it’s really not hard at all once you practice being careful, and being careful quickly becomes second nature. (It may not be as fun and exciting to be so methodical about it, but if you’re getting off on the risk you have a whole other set of problems that a set of guidelines can’t fix.) If you do it right, you’ll end up with a drug that has mostly upsides and few downsides.

There! See? It’s not impossible, yay! Please share this with your friends so uninformed users stop G’ing out and ruining the rave scene for us. ❤


Disclaimer: With this and all of my posts, I’m not advocating for drug use any more than someone who tells teenagers to use condoms is telling them they should have sex. I just don’t have my head stuck in the sand. I’m acknowledging a reality in order to keep people safe. -H

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon, or sending some diapers for my baby from my Amazon list 🙂 I’m a low-income grad student and new mom trying to fight against the devastation of the Drug War–every little bit helps.

Find me on Twitter ranting about drug policy, criminal justice reform, anti-capitalism, psychedelics and anthropology: @HilaryAgro

Extra reading: I kept this post as short as possible to encourage lazy readers like myself to actually read the whole thing, but there are some important points to add. Some have been helpfully suggested by knowledgeable users, feel free to leave a comment with anything you think is missing!

  • Note that this article is NOT about GBL – the dosing is different for GBL so make sure you know what you’re getting, and do additional research before you consume anything.
  • GHB is not actually measured in milliliters, it’s measured in grams. Talking about GHB doses in mL is ultimately meaningless without knowing the concentration of the solution. “If taking/purchasing GHB from someone, always inquire as to what the EXACT concentration of the solution is. If they do not know, do not ingest the substance without either using titration to determine the concentration or evaporating the solution back to powder, weighing and putting the known amount of GHB back into a solution with your choice of concentration.”
  • If you buy larger quantities to dose out, put blue food colouring in the bottle you keep your G in so that no one accidentally mistakes it for water or liquor.
  • Advice from a harm reduction expert I know: “If you’re going to mix with alcohol, it’s better to take the G first or sip it to titrate up on either drink.”
  • Stimulants/uppers can mask the symptoms of a G overdose, so you can go into an OD after the stimulant wears off. Be aware of this when mixing and don’t take more G to compensate for the upper.
  • Does my monocle joke make sense to people who don’t get the Simpsons reference? (EDIT: I have been given confirmation that it does. Excellent.)