Sacha Lord has said that home secretary Suella Braverman will have ‘blood on her hands’ over a decision to enforce licences for drug testing at clubs and festivals. The Parklife co-founder and night time economy advisor to Andy Burnham made the comments on a scathing post to Instagram.
It came after the Home Office said that the festival could not test drugs confiscated from festival goers, as it has done with drug testing charity The Loop since 2014, without a special licence.
Never before has a licence been necessary for the practice, with the festival organisers and The Loop having their own arrangement with local police. Speaking to The Guardian last week, Lord called the move ‘senseless’ and ‘a huge miss-step’ by the government.
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“I want to talk to you about drugs,” he says in the post. “You may have seen in The Guardian exactly what happened at Parklife last week. It’s disgusting.
“Since 2014, we’ve been testing drugs on site at Parklife. If there is anything that is worrying to the medics on site, we’ll put out an alert. But last Wednesday the Home Office turned around and said ‘nah, you’re not doing it’.
“We tried to come up with a plan B, to go to Manchester University, and they blocked us again there. This is coming from the Home Office, the home secretary Suella Braverman. Drug testing saves lives. It is that simple. It’s going on, we don’t condone it. But let’s take the sensible approach.
“And I’m telling you now, if there are any drug-related deaths at festivals this summer that we think could have been prevented by drugs testing, well blood on your hands Suella Braverman. Bang out of order.”
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Lord added: “Festivals across the UK have been doing this since 2014. Blocking this at the 11th hour is one of the most dangerous, stupid decisions I have seen in my 30 year career.
“I am extremely concerned about festival season now. No one is condoning drugs, we are condoning harm reduction. If there is a fatality now over the next few months, we will always wonder whether this could have been prevented by continuing a common sense approach of back of house testing.”
Such licences from the government can take months to arrange, and can cost in excess of £3000. The Loop declined to comment on the matter.
A Home Office source told the Manchester Evening News that it did not block Parklife from using Manchester University as a testing resource.
It also denied that it has changed its policy on back of house drug testing. A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our position hasn’t changed. Drug testing providers must have a licence to test for controlled drugs, including at festivals. We have consistently made this condition clear, and law enforcement have always had a responsibility to uphold this legal requirement.
“We have not received any applications for drug testing at the major festivals this summer. We continue to keep an open dialogue with any potential applicants.”
Lord spoke to the Manchester Evening News in the lead up to Parklife, saying that he remains ‘adamant’ that the way the festival and the Warehouse Project deal with drugs is the ‘right way’.
“If anyone says to me, ‘I run a festival, and drugs don’t come into [my event], they’re either stupid or they’re lying. Because it happens,” he said. “Ultimately, if you cannot stop drugs getting into a category A prison like Strangeways, what am I supposed to do in a park? So let’s work together, and have a common sense approach and keep people safe.”
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