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On the car ride home from the Shambhala Music festival, a weekend rave on a ranch in British Columbia this July, Matt Richtel was too tired to speak.
Mr. Richtel, a health and science reporter at The New York Times, and Alana Paterson, a photographer, were not exhausted from dancing. They had just spent the better part of 50 hours documenting the drug culture at Shambhala, where illegal drug use is open and an on-site lab sponsored by the festival and the government tests drugs for lethal ingredients.
Their efforts, which were published in an article last month, were part of a reporting focus that Mr. Richtel has pursued for nearly two years: the synthetic drugs that have led to a surge in overdose rates this century.
Mr. Richtel and Ms. Paterson attended the rave with media passes. They slept, barely, in canvas tents at the edge of the grounds. Most of the time, they were interviewing attendees about drug use, trying to understand the tension evident when a behavior is accepted in one setting and stigmatized everywhere else.
In an interview, Mr. Richtel and Ms. Paterson explained the delicate role of journalists in a setting like Shambhala. This conversation has been edited.
What led you to the Shambhala festival?
MATT RICHTEL: After almost two years of exploring the explosion of synthetic drugs, my colleagues on the Well desk and I started to look for how people are trying to deal with the problem. And Shambhala happens to be a place with relatively open harm reduction in real time in the form of free drug testing. So it provided a chance to see how people who believe in a certain kind of policy approach were carrying that out.
How did you introduce yourselves and explain your work as journalists?
RICHTEL: When you’re an experienced journalist, you know that the very first thing you do is tell people who you are and what you’re doing. I don’t think a single conversation took place, other than when we were ordering coffee, that didn’t start with some version of: My name is Matt Richtel. I’m a health and science reporter with The New York Times. I am writing about harm reduction and drug testing here. And I have a Times photographer with me. You’re under no obligation to talk to us. We want to be as open and upfront as possible. We’d love to hear your perspective if you’re interested. Do you want chat?
Alana, you’re walking around holding a camera. Did people react to it?
ALANA PATERSON: It’s a strong tool. In situations like that, I often wear a New York Times hat. I find it helpful and transparent. We did talk to a lot of Americans, but Canadians are very receptive to The New York Times, I find.
RICHTEL: There were a couple of people we talked to who showed hostility. I’m thinking of one person who conceded to being on cocaine. I made an effort to steer us away from that conversation. Other people, when they hear the term science reporter or New York Times, whether or not they see the camera, they say, I’m interested in what you’re doing; I’d like to hear more and I’d like to contribute; and it unfolds much more like a conversation than a rigid interview. And the lion’s share of our conversations happened exactly like that.
How did you negotiate with people to take photographs of people with the drugs they had?
PATERSON: Once the conversation was clearly in a comfortable place between Matt and them, I just said, can we see your drugs? And then, can I photograph them? Most people said yes, as long as you can’t see my face.
RICHTEL: That photograph moment often became an inflection point in the conversation. When they showed their drugs, it brought to light the internal conflict that they were experiencing, and that exists in this whole story. At Shambhala, they were at a place that is open with drugs and drug testing. But when the drugs came out, it seemed to spark this part of the conversation about how they have lives outside this bubble in a professional career, with a family or a partner who may or may not know that they were doing these drugs, which are often illegal.
What we picked up in their body language and their words is in that moment, they were confronting the essence of this story: We’re dealing with a widespread public health issue and social behavior that still is not widely and openly confronted.
Did you have rules for journalism when you’re interacting with subjects who were who are intoxicated?
PATERSON: We gut-checked that together. We asked, can this person give consent right now?
RICHTEL: We also went back to people afterward. In the case of one person who said that his photo could be given, and he told us at the time that he was only a few hours off of using multiple drugs, I went back him after the festival and said, Are you sure these are the circumstances? How do you feel about this? He confirmed what we discussed at the festival.
If anybody had any hesitation we just moved to the next person.
Matt, you mentioned the paradox of an illegal activity embraced in the open. That tension has been present in much of your reporting focus on synthetic drugs, right?
RICHTEL: I looked back on this project of the last year and a half. I’ve used more anonymous sources than I’ve ever used at The Times. We’re generally not permitted to do that except under extreme circumstances. What makes this so paradoxical is these drugs are everywhere, many people are using them, many people are getting sick. And yet because of the social stigma and the law, nobody really wants to be associated with their use.
Why is this so important? Because, if we’re trying to deal with synthetic drugs as a public health and policy issue, you want to be able to write about this as openly, frankly, and accurately as you can.
The post To Find Honest Talk About Drugs, Go to a Music Festival appeared first on New York Times.
