Drug testing is to be carried out in nightclubs following alarm at the discovery of new psychoactive substances and superstrength ecstasy pills at Electric Picnic.
A pilot HSE scheme at the festival earlier this year found three new types of drugs among the 46 handed in by members of the public.
These were 3-CMC and 5-MAPB (both similar to amphetamines) and 4-HO-MiPT (akin to LSD).
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‘Mybrand’ ecstasy tablets which come in the form of a skull also had massively varying amounts of MDMA ranging from 36mg to 235mg, while some of the MDMA powder checked by HSE chemists was almost completely pure.
The revelations led to fears of further overdose deaths in a country which already has one of the highest rates in the EU.
HSE chiefs now plan to install more ‘surrender bins’, where clubbers can check the purity of their drugs, at other venues around the country.
If dangerous levels of purity are found, warnings will be issued on social media to prevent potential overdoses.
Public Health Minister Frank Feighan told the Sunday Times: “What I did notice is that the amount of work that went into Electric Picnic because you had to skirt around many kinds of legal obstacles. All the stakeholders did work very hard.
“There is now a need for an expansion to inside and outside nightclub settings.”
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