Drug offender arrested at Bass Canyon Festival

After an eventful weekend of investigations, detectives from the Grant County Sheriff's Office have caught over a dozen suspected drug offenders.

(They didn't do this alone; it was a cross-agency effort. Click here for details.)

Authorities have filed nearly 70 drug trafficking charges, according to the agency's official Facebook page.

Like many electronic music festivals, Bass Canyon Fest, held at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, has a reputation for being a center of drug-related crime.

This reputation is not necessarily unjustified or undeserved. Between Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 18, numerous illegal drugs were seized: hallucinogens, dissociative anesthetics (e.g. ketamine), stimulants (cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine), cannabis and DMT (dimethyltryptamine).

The street value of these drugs is estimated at $20,000.

The canyon in particular is a controversial location, having been the scene of several overdose deaths as well as a shooting in 2023. The instigator of the shooting later asked for leniency; his judgment, he said, was distorted by psilocybin (psychedelic) mushrooms.