GEORGE, Washington — The Grant County Sheriff's Office said on Thursday that fentanyl was among the drugs seized in 38 busts during the Paradiso Festival at the Gorge Amphitheater on June 14-16.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The NDIA, citing the most recent CDC statistics, said 28,400 reported overdose deaths in 2017 were blamed on fentanyl and other synthetic narcotics. That was, by far, the most widely-used drug involved in reported overdose deaths that year.
"Fentanyl is often abused. Overdose is common, especially among drug users who don’t know that it’s Fentanyl which they are using. Clandestinely-produced Fentanyl is primarily manufactured in Mexico," the sheriff's office wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
GCSO said authorities made 38 drug busts on 97 felony counts during the festival.
Authorities initially announced the arrests in a Facebook post on Tuesday afternoon.
"Drug busts at Paradiso 2019 included 38 drug dealers on 97 felony charges," the post said. "Detectives seized Molly, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, cocaine, steroids, ketamine, thousands of dollars in cash and one handgun."
GCSO spokesman Kyle Foreman said the quantities of drugs recovered indicated it was for more than personal use.
"These weren't personal use-sized busts," Foreman said. "These were quantities that you see with people that are delivering or distributing or trafficking."
Foreman said the arrests were higher than normal and came from an increased amount of undercover detectives in the festival's crowd.
"I know we had three times as many detectives in the crowds from different agencies," he said.
The increase in detectives has been happened for the past four years, Foreman said. He added that this comes from increased partnerships between agencies resulting in better intelligence indicating a high amount of drugs present at the festival.
Foreman also said detectives are present at most concerts, not just Paradiso.
"Almost every concert," he said. "There's going to be some concerts out there that, based on the profile of the concert and the profile of the crowd, it's not going to warrant detectives out there."
While the drugs recovered included a long list of different substances, Foreman said molly tends to appear at EDM festivals more than others.
"Molly always seems to be predominant at EDM festivals, but they all seem to have a high presence at this concert for some reason," he said.
As for assaults, Foreman said the amount was average for the festival, and the firearm recovered was part of a drug bust and not used in any assaults.
All people arrested for drugs at Paradiso were booked into the Grant County Jail, he said. The charges included possession of a controlled substance, delivery of a controlled substance