Opinion: Is It Time To Allow For Drug Quality Testing Facilities In Festivals And Clubs?
As government policy seems to be aiming to treat drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one the question arises whether users should have facilities where they can check the substances that they are ingesting.
Although not strictly legal, possession of small quantities of drugs have been decriminalised and it would seem reasonable to follow the way several countries, including the UK, The Netherlands and Canada, have facilities, run by independent NGOs, that check the quality of drugs before the punters take them.
Conforming with the harm-reduction approach adopted for cannabis legalisation, we cannot gloss over the fact that people go to parties and that they do drugs.
They have been doing so at least since the 90s, and though we don’t have an alarming rate of overdoses, at least of party drugs, people deserve to know what they are taking.
There were several reports of sub-par substances floating around in some of the recent festivals. Some pills were described as ephedra instead of MDMA and caused discomfort instead of pleasure.
Ephedra can cause a quickened heartbeat and elevated blood pressure. Side effects include heart palpitations, nausea, and vomiting. More than 800 dangerous reactions have been reported with use of the herb. These include heart attacks, strokes, seizures, and sudden deaths.
Last year we had two cases of women dying after ingesting dubious pills within two weeks. This may have been part of a wave of bad pills across Southern Europe and might have been the result of the batch being cut with the opioid Fentanyl.
A harm-reduction approach to drug taking should aim that if people are going to use certain substances anyway, which they do, the highest possible assurances of the highest quality and safety standards should be available in the form of drug testing facilities.
“Drug-related hospital admissions down 95% after onsite testing at festival in Cambridgeshire.”
“Chemists from the non-profit social enterprise The Loop analysed 247 drug samples brought in anonymously by festival-goers. Two-thirds of people who discovered they had had substances missold to them subsequently handed over further substances to the police, according to the study.”
According to a report on The Guardian “Testers found that one in five substances sold at the Secret Garden Party, a four-day festival in Cambridgeshire in July 2016, were not as described by dealers.”
Samples contained ketamine instead of cocaine, while a drug sold as MDMA turned out to be n-ethylpentylone, a long-lasting cathinone that can cause anxiety, paranoia, insomnia and psychosis.
Others contained pharmaceuticals and cutting agents such as anti-malaria medication, as well as less harmful ingredients such as brown sugar and plaster of paris.
“The service not only identifies and informs service users about the contents of their submitted sample and provides them with direct harm reduction advice but this pilot tells us they spread the information to their friends,” said Fiona Measham from Durham University’s Department of Sociology, and director of The Loop.
This study concluded that: “that festival-goers engage productively with onsite drug safety testing services when given the opportunity, such services can access harder-to-reach and new user groups and can play a part in reducing drug-related harm by identifying and informing service users, emergency services and offsite drug using communities about substances of concern.”
“Disposals to the testing service for onward police destruction provide an externally corroborated measure of impact, reducing harm to the individual and others by removing such substances from site. Evidence of differential dealing onsite and its potential negative consequences has implications for future research and policing.”
With another festival season on the way it seems reasonable to at least discuss this kind harm-reducing measure. Even it if just saves one life it’s worth it.
Do you agree with the principle of quality testing for drugs?
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