Police seize over 700 pounds of drugs at the Gathering of the Juggalos festival

Police seized more than seven hundred pounds of drugs during the 26th annual Gathering of the Juggalos in Camden County, Missouri, the festival built around Insane Clown Posse and its audience.

The event had moved. This was its first year at Mother Nature's Riverfront Retreat in Macks Creek, after five years in Thornville, Ohio, and local law enforcement arrived ready for it.

The haul, per KOMU, came to 288.5 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms and 242.5 pounds of marijuana, along with ketamine, cocaine and fentanyl, DMT powder, MDMA tabs and close to thirty pieces of drug paraphernalia.

The operation ran from August 16 to 22, ahead of the main event, and involved multiple agencies, 305 traffic stops and 12 K9 units. Four people were arrested. Kevin Jones was held with 128 pounds of marijuana, 2.5 pounds of mushrooms and more than $5,000 in cash. Dennis Pradham was found with 93 pounds of marijuana and 124 pounds of mushrooms plus several harder drugs. Robyn Weiford and Jesse Williams were charged over 40 pounds of edibles.

The drug figures were not the whole of it. Officers also handled five assault cases, six fraud reports and thirteen reckless driving complaints across the week, and Mercy Ambulance answered 80 further calls for service over the seven days. Sheriff Chris Edgar said the effort took coordination between agencies working as a single unit.

The festival is logged on the festival tracker with the rest of the hip-hop and rock summer, a season in which policing and safety at events has been a running story, from a death at Kendal Calling in England to an arrest at a Morgan Wallen show.