Competition boss steps up authorized motion over drug testing in ‘pop up labs’
A
pageant boss has stepped up his authorized menace towards the Government over its ban of on-site drug testing at festivals in portacabins.
Parklife co-founder Sacha Lord has written to the Home Office on Wednesday urging it legalise pop-up drug testing at festivals with out the necessity for a everlasting constructing.
He mentioned drug testing at festivals has been taking place since 2014 with the settlement of native councils and police, however the Home Office determined to implement the requirement for a Controlled Drug Licence simply hours earlier than Parklife, an annual two day pageant in Manchester, was set to start this June.
The Home Office mentioned there was no change in its coverage for the previous 50 years.
Mr Lord, who can be the Night Time Economy Adviser to Greater Manchester, on Wednesday referred to as on the Home Office to grant a gaggle authority licence to main drug testing suppliers equivalent to The Loop to allow them to take a look at medication on-site at festivals.
Currently a Home Office licence could be issued for drug testing provided that suppliers have a selected, named, everlasting premises, Mr Lord wrote within the letter.
He wrote: “Clearly this is problematic for music festivals as they are often held in remote areas and do not have permanent structures on site, instead portacabins are ordinarily used to conduct this on-site drug testing in the presence of police.
“We should be grateful for the Home Office’s view as to whether it would be prepared to grant a group authority licence to the relevant testing providers, for example The Loop, which would as we understand it allow people to supply and possess drugs in accordance with the group authority that does not require a permanent structure.”
The letter comes a month after Mr Lord threatened legal action against the Government over its ban on drug checking at festivals without a Controlled Drugs Licence.
He claimed the Home Office despatched an e-mail to The Loop on June 8 stating that any organisation conducting drug testing would require a licence.
This was 48 hours earlier than Parklife pageant was to start out on June 10, giving organisers no time to use for a licence, Mr Lord claimed.
The warning was a shock as a result of music festivals within the UK have offered on-site drug testing with the settlement of police and native councils via numerous organisations and charities since round 2014, he mentioned.
Mr Lord informed the Standard on Wednesday: “The Home Office has left me with no option but to step up my threat of legal action in this matter.
“Despite repeatedly voicing my issues, and people of the pageant and night time time industries, the Government has chosen to proceed with a harmful and reckless change in coverage which might put lives in danger.
“This policy was working perfectly well, and I have no doubt it saved countless lives in the past, when festivals like my own, the police and specialist drug testing agencies worked seamlessly together to keep people safe.
“I’m due to this fact respectfully asking the Government to do the fitting factor on behalf of oldsters, artists and festival-goers and rethink their resolution.”
Sacha Lord, co-founder of Manchester’s Parklife
/ PA MediaA Home Office spokesperson mentioned: “There has been no change in our position. For the past 50 years, drug checking providers must have a licence to test controlled drugs, including at festivals, which they can apply to the Home Office for.
“We continue to keep an open dialogue with any potential applicants who wish to apply for a licence.”
Festivals aiming to check medication off their website this summer season must work with the police and a Home Office licenced drug testing supplier.
In a letter to Mr Lord dated July 14, responding to his pre-action letter, the Home Office mentioned it didn’t settle for that it had “changed policy” however has constantly held the requirement for a Controlled Drugs Licence.
The Home Office mentioned manufacturing, provide and possession of managed medication is “generally unlawful save when carried on by certain designated persons carrying out specific functions, or under a Controlled Drugs Licence”.
“This has been the law for many years,” the Home Office mentioned. “It is not understood that this view of the law is controversial.”
Mr Lord mentioned that an utility for the Controlled Drugs Licence prices 1000’s of kilos and takes three months.
He mentioned the letter informing The Loop of the licence requirement was “procedurally unfair”, “irrational” and left pageant goers prone to loss of life.
Under the Home Office necessities got down to The Loop in June, the letter mentioned that “substances would have to be transported away from the festival to the premises identified in the licence in order to be tested”.
“This requirement would render the testing, for all but the largest of festivals, prohibitively expensive and, even for the largest of festivals, so time consuming as to nullify its effect.”