Nightclubs to 'check purity of cocaine and MDMA in free drug-testing booths'

Nightclubs in Britain are set to offer free drug testing for revellers who want to check the purity of their cocaine and MDMA.

The controversial move in Preston will see special drug-testing booths set up to check Class A substances, it has been reported.

The Sunday Times said the walk-in booths, run by a charity, will operate in the city centre on Friday and Saturday nights from the beginning of next year.

It reported that the initiative has the backing of Lancashire Police.

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The goal of the booths is to reduce drug-related deaths by checking cocaine and MDMA are not “adulterated or highly potent”.

Volunteers will run the booths from a caravan and will not handle drugs directly and substances tested will be destroyed, the report said, in order to ensure the scheme is legal.

Users of the scheme will not be asked for their names and will face no legal repercussions for possessing a Class A substance.

However, the proposals have been criticised and the police have been accused of encouraging drug use.

“I am staggered this is being contemplated,” Professor Neil McKeganey, founder of the Centre for Substance Use Research at Glasgow University, told The Sunday Times.

“The police are advocating a view which one would not unfairly describe as facilitating drug use.

“By implication the green light has been given by the authorities to consumption. It’s hard to see how this isn’t an absolute breach of our current drugs laws.”

However, a similar scheme at music festivals last summer was deemed a success – one in five people who tested their substances said they didn’t take drugs afterwards.

Fiona Measham, professor of criminology at Durham University and co-director of the Loop, the charity that will run the service, said: “It’s a very new service and some people might see it as quite radical, but it’s focusing on harm reduction.”