A woman issued a warning to festival-goers about the potential dangers of accepting a vape from a stranger.
Reading and Leeds Festival is set to take place across this weekend from 25 August to 27 August - and one festival lover has shared some important advice for folks who might be going along.
In a post on TikTok, the aptly named @festival_hollie, explained: “If you guys are at Reading and Leeds then carry on watching.
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“I just wanted to say, if any of you are at the festival and people come up to you offering a pull of their vape, please don’t take it.”
She went on to explain that there had been incidents at other music festivals where ‘people were spiked with vapes’.
“I don’t think it’s certain what’s actually in the vapes,” she continued. “But a lot of people are saying it’s spice. And it just won’t be a good experience for you.
“So if someone comes up to you offering you a vape, please do not take it.”
Spice is a synthetic cannabinoid, which - according to the NHS - is ‘much more harmful and unpredictable than cannabis’.
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Hollie’s warning comes after a woman collapsed after puffing on a vape offered by a stranger at the Isle of Wight festival back in June.
Chloe Hammerton, 26, says that she was began to suffer fits 'within a minute' of puffing on the vape, before she drifted 'in and out of consciousness' and was left totally 'unable to speak'.
In a post on Facebook, Chloe’s girlfriend Natasha Ward, who had been at the festival with her, wrote: “Saturday into Sunday was truly one of the worst 24 hours of my life due to someone spiking/drugging, and nearly killing, my girlfriend at the Isle of Wight festival on Saturday afternoon/evening."
She explained that Chloe doesn’t usually vape but that she was ‘duped into taking a puff in this situation’.
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However, within moments, Natasha recalled Chloe wasn't able to 'move any part of her body' and began 'fitting with her pupils constricting to pinpoints and then dilating to 7’s'.
A man was later arrested in relation to the incident.
An Isle of White spokesperson told LADbible what happened to Chloe was an 'isolated incident' and claimed a medical professional was on site in five minutes.
Reading and Leeds has made the decision to ban disposable vapes this year, although refillable vapes are allowed.
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The regulations explain that ‘they [disposable vapes] pollute the environment and incorrect disposal of these can be hazardous at waste centres’.
Claire Reid