New scheme that allows festival-goers to test their drugs finds ecstasy pills containing CONCRETE
One in five users dump their drugs after they have been tested
A CONTROVERSIAL scheme launched to allow festival-goers to test their drugs has found some ecstasy pills containing CONCRETE.
Cocaine and ecstasy users have been promised they will not be arrested if they take their drugs to the on-site festival labs run by the charity The Loop.
The service, currently running at the Kendal Calling festival in Cumbria, promises users they won't be arrested if they bring their drugs in for testing.
Organisers claim they have have already found crushed up malaria medication, insecticide and even concrete in pills being sold.
Professor Fiona Measham, director of The Loop, said the charity was offering a "pragmatic, harm reduction initiative".
"We accept that some people will get drugs on site and some people will be planning to take them so what we're doing is trying to address any potential health problems.
"This is a focus on public health rather than on criminal justice."
She revealed about one in five users ask the charity to dispose of substances after they have been tested.
But critics argue that it could lead to an increase in drug use.
David Raynes of the National Drug Prevention Alliance"This normalises drug taking. Some people go to festivals for the first time and take drugs for the first time.
"The drugs they take will not be drugs that have been tested because during the testing process the drugs get destroyed so there will be other drugs available to them.
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"Testing doesn't make the drugs that people might take at a festival safe."
The testing comes after a number of drug-related deaths at UK festivals in recent years.
Six festivals, including Reading and Leeds, are to allow on-site drug testing this year in a attempt to highlight potentially lethal batches of drugs.