Photo: Press
When B.Traits' BBC documentary, ‘How Safe Are My Drugs?’ aired at the end of last year, the subject matter was already close to her heart. As a dance music DJ, who hosts a Radio One show and tours across the world, she sees no end of irresponsible drug-taking at her gigs. But after it aired - something else happened.
Her younger brother was taken to hospital after overdosing on drugs on a night out. Thankfully, he's now fully recovered, but it left her shaken, and with an even stronger resolve to do something about society's contradictory and damaging attitude towards drugs.
We caught up with her after the drugs panel discussion she led as part of LEAF Festival and gained more insight into what she thinks needs to change.
Gigwise: What insights do you, as someone who's very much a part of the dance music scene, get into the drug culture of young people?
B. Traits: I'm in it every weekend. I play gigs every weekend and I'm in the club all the time - it's my life and I see people on drugs all the time. It's something that we can't ignore. We should be acknowledging it and trying to make that environment safer. I feel that even the incident that happened with my brother totally could have been prevented. That's why I did the documentary, because it's a subject that is overlooked all the time. It feels like it's shoved under the rug by a lot of people and I'm very confident that we can make many environments safer. It definitely help’s put my mind at rest if there are paramedics on site who know how to deal with those incidences. Talking on a larger scale, if we were able to regulate certain kinds of drug use, for example, if there was an MDMA that was really clean and pure and you could go somewhere to get advice on how much to take, you'd probably have a really amazing time. There'd be no drama, there'd be no major issues, you'd probably have a great time. But most importantly, you’d be safe.
Because you're a young, influential DJ, are people more open to what you have say?
Definitely. I hate to say this, but when I watched that Drugs Live thing on Channel 4, I was a bit bored by it because everyone that they were testing it on were either in their late 30s or higher. For me it doesn't make much sense. Those generations have already made their decision on how they feel about drugs. I don't understand why they don't have younger people involved. Authorities look at us younger people as maybe not being as informed, but I think the fact that we want to be informed and involved in the discussion is really significant. Don’t ignore us, involve us.
I think we need more programs like [Drugs Live], but focusing on a younger audience and real problems that are actually happening. It's not like Jon Snow is smoking marijuana on a regular basis. He’s not the right person to be testing it on, so it's kind of tricky. But then again you have to jump through all these hoops to make it legitimate, to get the higher authorities to pay attention, so I understand why they do it. But I still think it could be much more relevant.
Younger people are unlikely to watch a middle-aged man smoking marijuana and think, 'This is such a wake-up call!'
Exactly, right! My younger brother's going to watch that and think, 'That's not how I do marijuana, that's not what happens to me at all'.
Watch the trailer for How Safe Are My Drugs? below
Are young people demonized in the eyes of the authorities?
There’s always a degree of that, authorities have always looked at the youth as being young, dumb and reckless. That generalized view doesn’t change the fact that we are the next generation and we need to make a stand against all of that discrimination. The best way to do that is to educate ourselves and to be vocal in a constructive way.
It was interesting to hear how much you learned about drugs in school when you were growing up in Canada.
Yeah, it was weird! I didn't even think about it much at the time, I really didn't. I was just like, 'We're learning about drugs. Sweet.' Honestly, you learned about so many psychoactives, psychedelics; mushrooms, LSD, heroin and stuff like that. It totally influenced the way I experimented with drugs. I knew about MDMA, I knew about ecstasy, I knew what effect it would have had on me if I took it. I also knew what to do if I ever did choose to do it. We learnt all of that at school. It may seem completely bizarre that I was given that information but I feel very lucky to have had that sort of schooling, it was really beneficial. I have, on an extreme level, for example, no intention of ever trying heroin and on a completely different level, no interest in ever smoking cigarettes. I put that heavily down to the early education I received.
Did you come across any class divisions when you were filming the documentary, in terms of attitudes towards certain drugs?
There were lots of people who didn't want to be filmed, they absolutely refused because they were doing drugs of a certain class and were afraid of what the authorities would do or how they would be viewed. That proved to be difficult.
I noticed something really drastically when I was DJing in the Philippines though… I was playing in this venue that was basically an Class A venue. I had no idea about this kind of thing - people who had money went to this party and they did a certain kind of drug. Then there was a C Class venue where they did this really sketchy crystal meth-type drug which was easy to get a hold of. That was quite frightening.
Since the documentary went out, have you noticed a difference in the shows you play? Are people aware of what you're doing?
I definitely feel like they're aware. People sometimes come up to me and they're like, “Thank you so much for making that documentary, I totally think twice about my drug use now”, which is amazing for me to hear. I hope that I've made some sort of difference in making the documentary. My intention was to educate myself throughout the process and fortunately that education filtered through to the viewers too.
You asked the panelists at LEAF what they thought was "sensible drug use." What do you think is sensible drug use?
I think sensible drug use depends on several factors. Knowing your limits is key. Most people know themselves. They know how much alcohol to drink and they generally know their limit unless they're really young. Advice that I would personally have given my brother, which I think could have been really beneficial for him, would have been to start small and do a little bit more later in the night if he felt comfortable doing it, but to not go over the top at all. Be careful, think twice about it. Don’t just do a fuck load of drugs… You're not going to have a good time. Know your limit. That's being sensible with it. Also, making sure that you have good friends around you is key. That alone could help so many people. I'm so thankful that my brother's friend was there with him at the party, because things could have gone in a very different direction. Even with people that aren't your mates - if you see someone in the corner having a bad time, just fucking tell somebody.
It's about not ignoring the fact that people are going to do drugs, and are always going to want to have some sort of heightened experience when they're partying. Drug use is always going to happen, especially in a party environment where music and alcohol is available. But there are ways to make it safer and it makes no sense to not put these measures into place and rave safely!
Basically we just need an open dialogue about drugs in general. I think that's what the documentary did as well, I know there were a lot of different opinions about it but it did create space for dialogue and that is exactly what I wanted it to do. I want people to talk about it, discuss it. Even if people are arguing over certain points, that to me, is a good sign.
Even if they disagree with some parts...
Yes, exactly! But they're still creating dialogue about it, which is what really matters!
