UK music festivals: 'Drug checking could have saved Georgia'

[incident]

4 hours ago, a6l6e6x said:

I think it should be at every festival and find it strange that it wasn’t at glasto 22

Obviously people will take pills, powder, everything at this festival

if tested mdma can be a perfectly safe drug/definitely no more damaging than alcohol. It’s a wider issue that it should just be legalised, made in a controlled environment and the money from it should go towards taxes instead of funding criminal organisations. The same can be said about a majority of illegal drugs in this country

As was discussed on the previous thread - Front of House testing wasn't at any UK Festival this year, hasn't been at any since 2018, and likely won't be anywhere in the foreseeable future. At this point it's nothing to do with whether the Festivals want it or not, if the Government are obstructing it.

 

[tarw]

From what I remember the Tory government told police that handing over a sample to test was dealing under the Misuse of Drugs Act and to enforce this!

 

Fucking stupidity  

[philipsteak]

5 hours ago, Skip997 said:

From the article i linked

"We found people wanted to use the service, they queued up to use it in all weathers, and they were willing to do that for several hours."

The few youngsters I've spoken to at festivals about drugs are well up for education around the subject and would be very willing ot have their drugs tested.

18 year olds seem much more sensible than when I was 18.

Yes, even the drug taking 18 year olds. 

[gfa]

Maybe a welsh festival will lead the way given their government are less alien to the idea (govt ran testing lab in cardiff). They don't have any big dance festivals though / big ones really in general so seems unlikely

[Skip997]

Prohibition has never worked and never will work. Surely harm reduction and education are the way forward.

[nikkic]

There are kits you can buy for testing at home right? 

Anyone ever used them? 

[Isaact]

The kits you buy for testing at home can tell you the presence of a substance, but not the total chemical composition.

So you can find out if your MDMA has any actual MDMA in it, for example, but you can't find out how strong it is.

Better than nothing, but still nowhere near as good as actual testing from people like The Loop.

[Neil]

12 hours ago, tarw said:

From what I remember the Tory government told police that handing over a sample to test was dealing under the Misuse of Drugs Act and to enforce this!

 

Fucking stupidity  

the offence is 'supplying' that user would  be supplying to the testers.

[DeanoL]

19 hours ago, Skip997 said:

Wednesday, there's nothing happening.

But isn't the point of testing to test the stuff you bought on site, not stuff you might have bought in, which presumably you got from a source your know/trust?

[FrancisH]

3 hours ago, nikkic said:

There are kits you can buy for testing at home right? 

Anyone ever used them? 

If there's an option for somebody else to do it accurately probably best to do that, but if you know The Loop won't be there for example then it is at least a means of precaution. A friend ended up binning stuff after home testing last year because they were almost entirely full of potentially harmful chemicals, and indicated no trace of what they were supposed to be after repeated tests.

[gfa]

4 hours ago, nikkic said:

There are kits you can buy for testing at home right? 

Anyone ever used them? 

https://www.wedinos.org/

Do this, costs only a stamp to do

[Sawdusty surfer]

5 hours ago, nikkic said:

There are kits you can buy for testing at home right? 

Anyone ever used them? 

I've taken a testing kit with me to festivals for a few years now. It's mostly (but not exclusively) used on substances that my friends kids procure. 

Many many times recently 'MDMA' has turned out to be pentylone. Nasty stuff that looks exactly like MDMA.

Obviously purity can't be tested but the substance can usually be identified and some cutting agents.

Really easy to use and inexpensive.

[Old_Johno]

The loop used to have a home office exemption for handling prohibited drugs, it could not be further down this governments list to give them one. Would be an easy win for labour to legalise weed and tax the shit out of it to pay for the mess we’re in, and be a bit more progressive, but they don’t seem to want to rock the boat yet