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Drug testing at the V2003 music festival

Mark | 02.06.2003 13:49

Below is an article from yesterdays Sunday Times, regarding drug
testing at
the V2003 music festival (of all places!). Some time ago there were
stories
of multi-ten-thousand pound laptops being use to detect proximity of
drugs


UK: Festival fans face laptop drug test
Maurice Chittenden
The Sunday Times
Sunday 01 Jun 2003
---
THOUSANDS of people at pop festivals this summer could be subjected
to a
computerised drug test by police. Fans queueing to see Coldplay, the
Red
Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters at one festival will be asked to
provide
swab samples from their hands, writes Maurice Chittenden.

The samples will be inserted into a drug detection machine which is
about
the size of a laptop computer and costs £40,000. The machine will
flash
green, amber or red to show whether any drugs residue has been
detected.

It is a voluntary test but anyone refusing to take part could be
searched
by officers. Anti-drug law campaigners say the move is a retrograde
step
when cannabis is about to be reclassified from a class B to a class C
drug.

Police plan to use the machine for the first time when the three
bands play
at the V2003 festival at Weston Park, Staffordshire, in August.

Officers tried out the computer at a Stafford nightclub last month.
More
than 190 people were tested as they queued to go in. Six tested
positive,
but no drugs were found on them.

The human rights group Liberty said: "Police cannot force anyone to
take a
random drug test. Yet if people refuse, officers could view this as
suspicious and then decide to search them anyway."

Not all police forces are convinced of the effectiveness of the random
tests. Avon and Somerset police will not be using such drug testing
at the
three-day Glastonbury Festival, Britain's biggest annual pop event,
later
this month. They intend to target drug dealers rather than users.

Mark

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

REFUSE

02.06.2003 18:05

The answer to this is obvious: People need to go in without drugs or illegal actions, but act high so as to get the pigs to waste time searching them. Of course, the first drug search should lead to ALL members of the crowd swarming in to defend...

Luke from DC

Stash the Hash!

02.06.2003 21:23

Hmmm, a voluntary drug testing scheme....

Police "Hello Sir, would you mind taking this test please"
Reveller: "Do i have to?"
P: "It is not mandatory"
R: "Well i won't then"
P: "You don't want to? Why not?"
R: "Cos i'm under no legal obligation to."
P: "But if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide."
R: "I'm sorry but I'd rather not cooperate, i feel as if my human rights are being infringed."
P: "Step this way please sir, i need to shove my fingers up your bum, cos you might be hiding drugs up there."

Miss Point

V festies are shite anyway

03.06.2003 12:20

'V' festies are, from what I've heared, uniformly shite. The 'V' seems to stand for festie 'virgin' (not just for the bearded omnipath Richard Bransons empire)as only someone who dosent know their arse from a hole in the ground would identify it as a festival. I worked at one a few years ago and discovered to my horror that it all packs up at 12 midnight, at which point yer s'posed to go back to your tents! Mabe things have improved since then... us festie workers found ourselves bemusedly drinking brandy coffee and smoking spliffs at an utterly deserted festival at about 1 in the morning - shurely shome mishtake? My advice - dont go to these overpriced, over policed excuses for festivals, not even if someones paying you. You can have more fun in yer garden - at least noone can tell you when to go to bed!

phatpat