Music Festivals: Drug Safety Testing

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Friday 6th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is about safety, and the work is done with skill and care.

The Loop introduced multi-agency safety testing—MAST—to the UK in the summer of 2016. From 2010 onwards, Professor Measham had shadowed academics, police and Home Office scientists who tested drugs on site at festivals primarily for evidential and intelligence purposes. She saw the value of extending that forensic testing to reduce drug-related harm on site through the provision of front-of-house testing or drug checking, as has happened for decades in other European countries. In 2013, the Loop conducted halfway-house testing, whereby samples of concern were obtained from agencies on site at festivals and nightclubs, and test results were then reported back to all agencies in order to inform service provision and better monitor local drug markets, which is so important if we are going to protect people.

That went further in 2016 with the introduction of MAST at the Secret Garden Party and Kendal Calling—for hon. Members who are not aware, those are festivals—by adding the general public to this information exchange. Although that was the first time that a drug safety testing service was available at a festival in the UK, it was built on evidence from similar services that have been running successfully in the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Austria for a number of years.

MAST is a multi-agency collaboration. Samples of substances of concern are provided by on-site agencies such as security, the festival organisers, the police or individuals who are intending to consume those substances. They are given a unique identifier number and return about half an hour later to get the test results. Those substances are tested by PhD chemists who are highly qualified and trained, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) said, using four types of forensic analyses and linked to a computer database containing a regularly updated reference standard library of all known legal and illegal substances, including new psychoactive substances, also known as legal highs.

People return with their unique identifier number and are given the test results as part of a 15-minute individually tailored brief intervention by an experienced healthcare worker. Harm reduction information is contextualised with people’s medical and drug-using history, as well as the test results. No drugs are returned to service users. I want to emphasise this: service users do not receive drugs back from the Loop. Almost all samples are destroyed during testing and any leftover particles are disposed of by the police at regular intervals throughout the festival. I have seen the complicated bits of kits they use to ensure that absolutely no one gets their hands on something.

A police presence is welcomed in the Loop lab throughout the day. That allows the Loop to share information and intelligence onsite, which can help to spread messages about dangerous substances in circulation. For that to work, the police and local authorities such as Bristol City Council agree to a tolerance zone of non-enforcement in and around the testing venue.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that with drugs at festivals, as with a whole range of issues, taking the attitude that we should just say no and refuse to acknowledge that there is anything we could or should do apart from that is abrogating our responsibility to keep our citizens safe?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. I certainly agree that the policy of just saying no has a huge number of limitations, one of them being that it does not seem to be working. If we take the corresponding example of sexual abstinence, “just say no” was promoted as a method of keeping teenagers from getting pregnant in America for many years. That has demonstrably failed, and there are similar examples of why it does not work for drugs either.

The non-enforcement zone just around the testing venue allows service users to engage fully and productively. Drug safety testing does not assist in the supply of drugs or condone or encourage drug use; I want to reiterate that. There is no safe level of consumption of any drug, and that includes the legal ones of alcohol and tobacco. Giving information is what helps people to make safer choices.

All those who use the service are, by definition, already in possession of a substance. If the drug is not tested, the person concerned will probably consume the drug without any information at all; if it is tested, they may consume it if they have more of the same substance, but with more information about what is in it so they can make a safer choice; or they may consume a smaller dose than they would have otherwise; or they may not consume it all. In many cases, people hand in more of the same substance, along with helpful intelligence for the police and drugs agencies about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I am simply stating the Government’s position, in terms of the existing law, and making it clear that there is no intention to change that. There is a wider debate to be had about drug strategy, but in the interests of time, I will focus on the issue at hand, which is what more we can do more to reduce the risk of harm to young people at festivals. I was talking about our collective requirement on organisers, police and other agencies to prepare strategies not only to enforce the law, but to protect the public, and within that, make sure that young people at such events have access to the right information and education about risks.

In that context—to speak directly about the issue under debate—the safety testing of products already clearly has a role. So-called “back of house” testing—whereby drugs that have been seized or surrendered by agencies are tested for their make-up and safety—is an established and valued tool for information about local drug markets and the risks inherent in events. So-called “front of house” testing, as pioneered by the Loop and advocated for by the hon. Lady and others, has been deployed with police co-operation first of all at Boomtown in Hampshire four years ago, at Kendal Calling in Cumbria, and at Love Saves the Day in Bristol with the full agreement of chief constable Andy Marsh, so it is possible.

However, as we feel our way forward on this, driven by our desire to do more to protect our young people from the risk in the real world, where they will have access to drugs and many will be tempted to experiment—this is the real world we operate in—we clearly do not want to be doing anything, as I am sure the hon. Lady agrees, that can be seen as endorsing the possession and consumption of illegal drugs. I do not think that is what she, The Loop or anyone else wants, and the Home Office will certainly not be signing up to anything that risks endorsing illegal drug use. In fact, the Loop is very clear that that is not what it is about.

We must also make it clear that the results of a test on a sample should never be interpreted as meaning that a drug is safe, because there are many other variables, as the hon. Lady knows, such as how the drug is used, what it is mixed with and the physical make-up of the individual taking it. We have to be honest about that.

I am sure that we all agree on the need for more evidence about the real impact when it comes to the desirable and honourable objective of reducing harm, because that is what motivates the Loop and the hon. Lady. We need better evidence about the causal link between this kind of testing and harm reduction, based on the experience of the UK and other countries where this tool has been introduced.

Having said that, I can confirm to the hon. Lady that the Home Office’s position, and that of Ministers, is that these are local operating decisions that we are not standing in the way of. The fact that chief constables from Cumbria, Avon and Somerset and Hampshire have stepped forward and said that they do want to co-operate sends a strong signal. I spoke earlier today to Chief Constable Andy Marsh from Avon and Somerset police, who is very clear that it is the right thing to do. He is also very comfortable about his legal position in doing so. Those are important signals.

[Sandy Martin]

Would the Minister be willing to make that position clear at the Association of Chief Police Officers conference?

[Mr Hurd]

I am coming to that, because the next thing I was going to say is that the relevant National Police Chiefs Council leads, Commander Simon Bray of the Metropolitan police and Deputy Chief Constable BJ Harrington of Essex police, have written to all chief constables and commissioners—I have the letter here—setting out the issues that they have to consider when assessing the value, benefits and risk of multi-agency drug testing at festivals. They make it clear that, as no drugs are returned to the user, there is no inadvertent supply offence. However, there are lots of issues that a police chief needs to think through in order to be comfortable. It is a local operating decision and we are not standing in the way, as is proven by the number of festivals deploying it.

However, in the light of the suggestion from the hon. Lady and others that there might be room for greater clarity in the guidance issued to the police on the matter, I have spoken to the Minister who leads on drugs policy, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), and she and I have agreed to speak to the police and explore whether the guidance could be further clarified. We have not received a direct request for greater clarity but, out of respect for the hon. Lady, and given the importance of the debate, I am happy to give that undertaking.

In the meantime, leaving aside the specific need to mitigate such risk at festivals, the Government have a very ambitious strategy for protecting people from dangerous drugs, and specifically for reducing the demand for drugs among young people by acting early to stop them taking them in the first place. A range of local initiatives are in place to improve safety and reduce drug-related harm, including social media messaging and communications from regional Public Health England centres. In addition, Public Health England continues to run “Frank”, the national drugs website and helpline for young people, which offers extensive information about drug risks and how to avoid them. “Frank” news articles in the festival season cover the risks in further detail.

The hon. Lady talked about psychoactive substances. We have already taken action to tackle the supply of so-called legal highs. Since the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 came into force, more than 300 retailers across the United Kingdom have closed down or are no longer selling those substances; police have arrested suppliers; and action by the National Crime Agency has resulted in the removal of psychoactive substances being sold by UK-based websites.

Everyone is concerned about the dangers posed by the availability of drugs on social media. We want the UK to be the safest place in the world in which to go online, and anything that is illegal offline should be illegal online. We encourage people to report worrying material to the police, as well as using the in-app tools to report such images to the app providers themselves. Law enforcement agencies continue to work with internet providers to shut down UK-based websites that are found to be committing offences.

As for education and raising awareness among young people, we are expanding the Alcohol and Drugs Education and Prevention Information Service, which provides practical advice based on the best international evidence, including briefing sheets for teachers. Rise Above, which is available on the internet and is aimed at 11 to 16-year olds, provides material to help them to make positive choices for their health.

A huge amount is going on. We have an ambitious strategy to meet the challenges and work towards a safer, healthier Britain free from the harms of drugs. In the specific context of this debate, I hope that the hon. Lady will leave satisfied that the Government have listened, and that we will discuss the matter further with the police to establish whether clear guidance is needed.

Question put and agreed to.