Prevention and information. Two words that go hand in hand with the concept of freedom and which want to mark a disctintion with repression. As every year Sunsplash faces the drugs problem, and in this Spanish edition, inside the festival, there's a stand dedicated to the analysis of drugs, held by Energy Control, a Spanish association created in 1997 funded by the regional governments.

"We mainly deal with risk reduction - explains Mireya - and the analysis, apart from providing a service, it's used to attract people, in order to provide an informational support. We are not trying to motivate you to take drugs, absolutely, we just try to face the issue in a serious way, with no paternalisms and alarmisms. It's right to let you know the risks and the best procedures of consumption to reduce the eventual problems bounded to this issue.

Every night ca thirty groups of people go there, and put their drugs unders the microscope lens:

"First of all we do a visual analysis - says Mireya - then we get on to the laboratory". Behind the tent, a series of reactants, bars and sprays, which let us taking a "picture" of the substances. "It's the first time we come to Sunsplash - goes on Mireya - because usually we go around other festivals, like the Sonar in Barcelona. We are specialized in psychoactive drugs, in particular Mdma, cocain and ecstasy, we never dealt with hashish and marijuana. It's an experiment for us, as almost all the total of the substances that get to our stand are cannabinoids. And I have to admit that, basing on the analysis, quality is definitely high". Not always, though, results are like this and the test can be useful to avoid negative consequences:"The other night some guys came with some very low THC content hasish, because mixed with other substances.

After having seen the results they decided to throw it away and not to use it. Because the solution it's not in moralism or prohibition, but in the knowledge and the freedom to choose".

Marco Bresolin

Translated by Nicol Pora