ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Dr. Barry Logan and his team attended the Ultra Music Festival in Miami in March, not for the music, but to collect saliva, urine and blood samples from concertgoers for federal drug research.
“It's a great venue for us to study some of what's going on in the designer drug market,” Dr. Barry Logan said.
Law enforcement officers at the festival were trained to look for signs of overdoses.
With synthetic drugs like flakka and bath salts, that can mean extreme body heat, dehydration and bursts of extreme energy.
They're the same warning signs for which parents should look for, experts said.
“At music festivals around the country, we hear stories about people getting sick or having adverse reactions to some of the drugs people are taking at events,” Logan said.
The goal of Logan and his team is to identify new drugs and to help emergency room doctors stop overdoses before they become deadly.
“It helps them understand some of the adverse reactions,” Logan said.
Contact Karla Ray for more on this story.