Researchers, MPs and charities are among dozens of high-profile supporters to sign up to The News Movement's #BringBackDrugTesting campaign.
TNM delivered a letter to the Home Office as pressure mounts on the department to reverse the decision to enforce a complicated licensing system that threatens to derail life-saving drugs testing.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a campaign calling on the Home Office to make it easier for UK festivals to test drugs ‘on-site’ (known as back-of-house testing) as a way of keeping festival goers safe from potentially dangerous batches of pills and powders.
The letter has been signed by a cross-party group of MPs including Sam Tarry MP for South Ilford and Crispin Blunt MP for Reigate, as well Marvin Rees Mayor of Bristol, Carly Heath Night Time Economy Advisor for Bristol, and drugs charities including PsyCare UK and CLEAR Drugs Policy Reform.
Sacha Lord, the founder of Parklife Festival and Michael Kill CEO of the NTIA (Night Time Industry Association) have also supported the campaign. It was Parklife Festival in Manchester that was the first UK festival not able to conduct testing under the stricter guidance from the government.
You can read the full letter here:
Dear Home Secretary
Following many years of successful back-of-house drug testing within UK Festivals as part of a wider harm reduction strategy and drug intelligence sharing scheme with the police and local authority, the Home Office made a last-minute decision to withdraw permission to carry out back-of-house testing at Parklife Festival in Manchester. This put thousands of people’s lives at risk on one of the hottest days of the year.
Previously, festival organisers worked in partnership under a memorandum of understanding with the police and other agencies to administer on-site back-of-house drug testing. This sudden change in policy will see festivals having to apply for individual drug testing licences which can take up to three months to process, and must be administered within a permanent building, will all but remove back-of-house drug testing on site for the remainder of the 2023 festival season.
This can only be described as an unprecedented policy U-turn on testing, contradicting the response to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in August 2021, where the government said it would “continue to support back-of-house testing on substances that have been seized, as this can provide useful intelligence and enable festival organisers and other partners to implement harm reduction measures”.
Similarly in 2018 the Home Office suggested that it “would not stand in the way of drug testing at festivals and clubs” as part of the proactive harm reduction strategy, witnessed by MPs and supported by several police forces including Avon & Somerset and Greater Manchester.
Since the decision to withdraw testing from Parklife, key stakeholders have been requesting further information from the Home Office on the policy change and clarity on the legislative framework for back-of-house drug testing licences.
We are writing to you to understand the following:
- Why were charities and events not given advanced warning of the Home Office's insistence on awarding licences in order to conduct back of house drug testing in the presence of police officers?
- What was the reason for this insistence, when the previous system worked adequately?
- Will the Home Office consider waiving the fee for applications for these licences
- Will the Home Office expedite the applications?
- Will the Home Office commission the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review this policy and make necessary recommendations?
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It is important to point out that festivals and events do not condone or encourage drug taking, and work collaboratively with police, local authorities and security to minimise the impacts of drugs on site.
Back-of-house drug testing is vitally important to ensuring the safety of festival goers, and key to the infrastructure of our world-renowned festival industry. In partnership with police and emergency services, it presents the ability to communicate directly with customers if there is a concern over the strength of a drug that is being circulated or potential contamination as part of a comprehensive drug harm reduction strategy on site.
We are calling on the Home Office to urgently reconsider this decision and allow back-of-house testing to resume at UK festivals for the remainder of the 2023 season, to guarantee the safety of all festival goers.
The potential impact of back of house drug testing being removed from UK festivals within 2023 will have huge ramifications , placing people’s lives at risk.
Yours Sincerely,
Michael Kill, Chief Executive of The Night Time Industries Association
Sacha Lord, Night Time Economy Adviser for Greater Manchester and co-founder of Parklife Festival
Sam Tarry MP for Ilford South
Crispin Blunt MP for Reigate
Charlotte Nichols MP for Warrington North
Wera Hobhouse MP for Bath
Ellie King Cabinet Member for Public health
Marvin Rees Mayor of Bristol
Caroline Russell London Assembly Member, Chair of Police and Crime Committee GLA
Ronnie Cowan MP for Inverclyde
Grahame Morris MP for Easington
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Zack Polanski Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales and London Assembly Member
Carly Heath, Night Time Economy Advisor for Bristol
Zoe Garbett, Green Party London Mayor Candidate
Martin Murray, Owner & MD of Nightclub Silks
Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group
Labour Campaign for Drug Reform Policy
Peter Reynolds, President CLEAR Drugs Policy Reform
Good Night Out Campaign
Correlation - European Harm Reduction Network
Kaleidoscope Project
PsyCare UK
Ivan Ezquerra-Romano, Drugsand.me
William Chalk, Journalist
Jessica Spratt, PHD University of Ulster
Previously, the Home Office have said:
Our position hasn’t changed. Drug testing providers must have a licence to test for controlled drugs including at festivals. We have consistently made this condition clear, and law enforcement have always had a responsibility to upload his legal requirement. We have not received any applications for drug testing at the major festivals this summer. We continue to keep an open dialogue with any potential applicants.”