Sacha Lord, the boss of Parklife and the Warehouse Project, has threatened the Home Office with legal action over drug testing at festivals and clubs.
Lord and the Night Time Industries Association have written to the Home Office demanding a judicial review over whether so-called ‘back of house’ drug testing should be required to have a Controlled Drugs Licence. It has given the government seven days to respond.
The Home Office has said that a licence has always been needed to test drugs, and that it has not changed its policy. Lord says that Parklife was only informed that it would need a licence to test drugs this year 48 hours before the event was set to take place.
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As a result, The Loop, the organisation which Parklife and WHP has worked with testing drugs on site since 2013, were unable to do so at this year’s festival, something Lord says puts lives at risk.
Prior to this summer, organisations like The Loop had worked with local police forces and local authorities to undertake on-site drug testing. Such testing allows charities like The Loop inform or warn festival goers in real-time via social how strong drugs that are in circulation might be.
Their testing also helps keep medics on site informed about how they can treat people who may have taken specific drugs and are suffering illness or potentially life-threatening symptoms.
In the letter to the Home Office, Lord and the NTIA say: “On or around 8 June 2023 the Home Office corresponded with The Loop (the leading provider of this on-site drug testing) and informed it that a Home Office Controlled Drugs Licence was required to perform this testing. The Home Office was well aware that on-site drug testing took place without licences and with the approval of local police forces.
“Recent press reports have suggested that the Home Office maintains that it was not aware that rapid, on-site testing took place at music festivals. That connection is unsustainable.”
In a post to Instagram after this year’s Parklife, Lord said that Home Secretary Suella Braverman could have ‘blood on her hands’ as a result of the enforcement of drug testing licences, which can take up to three months to be issued.
“I met with the Home Office last week, and they kept rolling out the same lines, that they were unaware [drug testing] had been going on, which is complete nonsense,” Lord told the Manchester Evening News.
“I’m not going to let this one go. I don’t care how much it costs. If it saves one person’s life as a bare minimum, we’re just going to carry on with it.
“I want them to revert back to how everyone used to operate for this festival season. We’re totally fine after the season is over sitting down with the Home Office with other festival organisers with a view to looking at whether they want to work things slightly differently next season.
“We’re fine with applying for licences that take three months. It’s the way they did it, 48 hours before this year’s festival season kicked off, when they knew people wouldn’t be able to apply for licences. It’s disgusting.
“We want to take this to a judicial review. A judicial review can take months to get to court, but in this case we’re talking about potential loss of life, so we can expedite it.
“We just want them to allow every single festival this season to carry on, like they have been doing for the last 10 years, conducting non-public facing, on-site back of house testing. Because it saves lives.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our position hasn’t changed for 50 years. Festivals aiming to test drugs off their site this summer must work with the police and a Home Office licensed drug testing provider. We continue to keep an open dialogue with any potential applicants.”
