Man Dies After Taking 'Unknown Substance' At Lost Paradise Festival

A 22-year-old man has died after taking an "unknown substance" at NSW's Lost Paradise Festival this past weekend. 

Joshua Tam, a Brisbane local, was taken to Gosford Hospital from the Glenworth Valley event at around 8pm on Saturday night but died shortly after, police confirmed. 

According to Sydney Morning Herald, Tam was the victim of a "deadly pill" and fell ill hours before his death.

Two other festivalgoers, a man and a woman, were also hospitalised after taking an unknown substance but have since been discharged. 

Of the 11,000 people who attended Lost Paradise, three were hit with drug charges - a 21-year-old man allegedly found with 105 MDMA pills, a 23-year-old man allegedly caught with 80 MDMA pills and six bags of cocaine and a 23-year-old man allegedly found with 26 MDMA pills.

They are due to appear in court in the coming months.

Meanwhile,  Falls Festival organisers sent a warning out to all its patrons regarding a "dangerous orange pill" being circulated around Australia on Sunday.

"Regardless of pill variation, we want to remind everyone of the potentially fatal risks that come with illicit substances," the message issued on social media and text reads.

"You do not know what is in them, how your body will react, there is no safe level of consumption."

Tam's death only comes weeks after the NSW Government again refused to budge on its stance against pill testing at festivals, following the death of a 19-year-old man at a Sydney dance festival.

"If we thought [pill testing] would save a single life of course we'd go down that path, but unfortunately what pill testing doesn't do is really take into account people's different physical attributes," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at the time.

"What is safe for one person, isn't safe for another..." 

In an exclusive piece written for The Music in September, Ted Noffs Foundation Campaigns & Policy Coordinator Shelley Smith took aim at government for refusing to look at the evidence from pill testing conducted at Groovin The Moo earlier this year.

"How can our politicians continue to ignore both science and the electorate, when there have been far too many deaths?" Smith wrote.

"We’ve established that we can prevent harm at music festivals, so why do governments continue to bury their heads in the sand?"

Read the full piece here.

Lost Paradise will continue as scheduled and concludes tomorrow.