U.K. - Government will not 'stand in the way' of drug testing at festivals

[S.J.B.]

Government will not 'stand in the way' of drug testing at festivals, says Home Office
Mattha Busby
Independent
July 9th, 2018

The Home Office "would not stand in the way" of drug testing at clubs and festivals, it said.

It follows calls from experts and campaigners for music events to provide the service after two people died and 13 others were hospitalised at Hampshire's Mutiny festival.

Eleven people have died at festivals in the last two years even though drug use is not increasing, suggesting that illegal substances now have higher levels of toxicity.

Currently, drug testing facilities are offered at an extremely limited number of nightclubs and festivals by The Loop, a charity and the sole provider of such services.

Policing minister Nick Hurd said the Home Office was not standing in the way of what he called "local operating decisions".

Read the full story here.

 

[edgarshade]

Drug testing at festivals is as daft as having food testers outside the supermarket. It shouldn't be necessary in the first place and the people making it necessary, the prohibitionist politicians, should be behind bars.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Drug testing at festivals is as daft as having food testers outside the supermarket. It shouldn't be necessary in the first place and the people making it necessary, the prohibitionist politicians, should be behind bars.

Totally get where you're coming from here mate.

However, given the present circumstances in our backwards country drug testing at festivals is a massive step forward and has conceivably saved a life or two already

 

[Tek4242]

I went to a festival last week, this was in the u.s. not the UK though, and we had free and open testing. I believe lots and lots of people were saved from either bunk or fentanyl laced stuff that was being sold by a very few amount of people. There was a very higher amount of people were selling pretty high-quality stuff that they were actually selling what they were stating they were selling. Of course this Festival also freely sold drugs, as in people walking around with huge cardboard signs with drugs they had and the prices they were and even though police were present no one seem to mess with us at all it's been like this the past few years I've been to this Festival. But this was the first year that they had free and available testing plus they were selling testing kits with a few hundred uses inside of it. They had the three normal testing kits and they also had a testing kit simply for fentanyl that was absolutely free with five individual testing kits inside. I believe having open and available testing is amazing and I don't see why if it work at this Festival why it shouldn't work and wouldn't work every single other music festival. You know that people are doing drugs at a music festival. simple fact. Just because someone does drugs they don't deserve to die. Another simple fact testing would reduce the amount of people dying and overdosing and having horrible experiences. Another simple fact