Future Music Festival Asia Deaths Reportedly Caused By Heatstroke, Not Drugs

Future Music Festival Asia was denied a licence over drug concerns in March, after six people died from suspected drug overdoses at the festival in 2014, but post-mortem results reportedly reveal three of those individuals were killed by heatstroke, with drugs only having a negligible effect.

According to The Star, post-mortem results were issued two months after the deaths, but authorities did not make them public and instead claimed they were the result of drug overdoses.

Dr K. Nadesan from the University Malaya Medical Centre, which carried out post-mortems on three of the dead and treated nine other Future Music Festival attendees, has said he sent several reports correcting the police’s official statements, but was ignored.

“Generally, the police did not show much interest in the reports. Unfortunately, they made statements without proper scientific reasons, which is not the right way,” Dr Nadesan told The Star.

“They should have spoken to us and encouraged an inquest into the case because it is a matter of public interest to prevent similar incidents.”

According to Dr Nadesan, the three deceased people his team examined tested positive for ecstasy or MDMA, but at a much lower than the average recreational level of 0.1 to 0.25 micrograms per millilitre.

Autopsies on the dead bodies reportedly led Dr Nadesan to rule the deaths as resulting from heatstroke, with one dead body supposedly having a temperature of 39°C.

“The autopsy and clinical findings were not on par with drug overdose. The police had no grounds to say it was. It was a wrong assumption,” Dr Nadesan has said.

Two of the nine heatstroke victims had no traces of drugs in their system, while the rest tested positive for MDMA, ketamine and morphine, according to Dr Nadesan.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Hospital, which handled autopsies for the three other victims, hasn’t revealed its results.

Oddly, Senior Assistant Commissioner Datuk Zainuddin Ahmad from the KL Criminal Investigation Depart­ment has confirmed that the sudden death reports for the six dead individuals listed heatstroke as their cause of death.

Future Music Festival Asia cancelled the third day of the event in March 2014, following reports of drug overdoses at the event.

Photos: The Prodigy @ Future Music 2015, Sydney / Photos by Maria Boyadgis