A Montreal man allegedly gave his former workmate fake cocaine at a warehouse party as part of an unauthorized intervention intended to make him associate raving with becoming violently ill. “Telling Étienne to stop taking drugs never worked because several doctors, two girlfriends and most of his internal organs had already tried that,” says 32-year-old Patrick Bélanger. “I wanted his body to develop a simple Pavlovian response: hear a kick drum, remember the vomiting and stay home.”

Étienne became suspicious when Patrick approached him beside the speakers despite not having spoken to him since they worked together at a call centre four years earlier. “This was a man who once refused to give me a piece of gum, and now he suddenly had free premium cocaine,” says Étienne. “I knew something was strange, but people don’t go to warehouse parties at four in the morning because they’re making excellent decisions.”

Shortly after accepting the unidentified powder, Étienne became extremely ill and spent nearly two hours vomiting behind a portable toilet while Patrick stood nearby monitoring the intervention. “He kept asking whether I had learned my lesson,” says Étienne. “I told him yes: never accept cocaine from someone who used to supervise my lunch breaks. Apparently that wasn’t the lesson he had in mind.”

Patrick eventually admitted that the substance was not cocaine and that he had given it to Étienne specifically to frighten him away from raves. “The plan was for him to become sick, reconsider his lifestyle and spend Saturday nights doing something healthy,” says Patrick. “Instead, he called the vomiting a spiritual purge and told everyone the party had removed four years of emotional toxins, two childhood traumas and a chicken shawarma.”

Friends assumed the experience and a brief hospital visit for dehydration would keep Étienne home for at least several weeks, but he attended another warehouse party the following night while still pale, nauseated and carrying a plastic bag in case he had to vomit on the dance floor. “He arrived wearing his hospital bracelet and told the bouncer it was an all-access wristband,” says longtime friend Mélanie Gagnon. “At one point he was lying motionless beside a speaker with his eyes closed, but he insisted he was conserving energy and dancing internally.”

Étienne continues to attend parties and says the incident only taught him never to accept mysterious powder from former coworkers. Patrick considers the intervention a complete failure. “I made him sick enough to see through time, destroyed our friendship and spent the next day checking his social media for a retirement announcement, but all he posted was a flyer for the following weekend,” says Patrick. “The only lasting change is that he no longer trusts me. Complete strangers remain completely unaffected.”