UK - Festivals urged to tackle legal highs by the government

BBC Newsbeat

14:34 GMT, Thursday, 19 May 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/13451137

Music festival organisers are being urged to do more to tackle legal highs.

Baroness Browning, the government's minister for crime prevention, has written an open letter to the organisers of the UK's top events.

She's concerned about the demand for legal highs and wants more to be done to stop them being taken:

"While people selling these products may give the impression they are legal and safe, they are more than likely not legal, and are not safe."

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"We want to help ensure festivals are as safe an environment as possible to help protect the public, especially young people, from the potential harms and risks of all drugs."

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Festival organisers of Leeds, Reading, Big Chill, Bestival, Latitude, V and T in the park all a blanket policy, no legal highs on site.

"We treat legal highs the same as illegal drug, they are banned."

Glastonbury also said: "We take the issue of legal highs very seriously. We have passed on the contact details for the only trader we have on site out of over 900 traders that trades in legal highs to the local police."

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If something is legal then why are "crime prevention" ministers or the police getting involved? There is no crime to prevent or law to enforce.

Oh this is classic. Legal highs ough to be banned from these festivals even though they are legal, while alcohol, also dangerous and legal and a high, can actually be sold on festival ground.

I don't often make the analogy with alcohol, but this is so ignorant and hypocritical it's not even funny anymore, I'm actually raging.

10/10 Lady Baroness, you succesfully trolled me.

what are they going to do- stop you from taking your stuff beforehand? Full on blanket cavity searches? Watch you take a shit? 1:1 bouncer ratio so you're always standing next to security? Security cameras with a team of hundreds monitoring every move?

it's a statement, but the most they could do is kick you out of the festival. Their allowed to ban behavior as it's private--just kinda funny though

i mean everyone takes illegal drugs at those things--and they're banned too...

Solide said:

Oh this is classic. Legal highs ough to be banned from these festivals even though they are legal, while alcohol, also dangerous and legal and a high, can actually be sold on festival ground.

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Agreed!

Where is the line drawn at a legal high? Just anything that isn't alcohol?

all the while more safe drugs like MDMA get shat on, the more legal highs that get banned, the more unsafe nasty analog chemicals will show up. david nutt predicted this, and its funny the lawmakers over there dont stop...stare at their desks...and just THINK about the issue for 1 second. all i ask is that they use their god-given brains for 1 second to actually think about something before they open their mouths.

people will get high, whether it be on opium, mephedrone or cough syrup. might as well let people get high on the safer drugs....

Cambo said:

Agreed!

Where is the line drawn at a legal high? Just anything that isn't alcohol?

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Hey now, don't be ridiculous! Our government leaders wouldn't be that unquestioningly stupid to draw such an obviously arbitrary and hypocritical line between legal and illegal recreational drugs... you forgot tobacco!

^ and caffeine.

lucky it didn't mention the festival i intend of going to, besides i will have some much safer MDMA instead