No tolerance of drugs - including legal highs at UK festival

Sorry I don't have a source on this yet, but a friend of mine lives near the location where the V Music Festival will take place this year, and he wrote to me about what their local newspaper says.

It says the police are to have a no tolerance policy, including on "legal highs".

This strikes me as rather odd, if they are legal, how can the police be involved? I can understand the festival itself banning them, they are a private event, and can do pretty much what they like, but how can the police be involved in something that is not a crime?

I'm guessing here, the legal highs they refer to don't include Alcohol, Cigarettes, Coffee, Chocolate!

This seems like classic police state nonsense.

Yeah similar thing happened to a friend of mine in a club by mine. Tried to get in with mcat and the bouncer searched him and took it off him (before it was made illegal) No police involvement though.

I don't really agree with the whole legal high situation, we just don't know how much damage these could actually do, in both the short term and the long term. But to get the police involved on something like this doesn't surprise me. I presume they would confiscate it and arrest you for suspicion of possession of a controlled substance, all white powder looks the same. Then they'd test it for purity in the police station, find 1% of it was coc aine for example and then arrest you

Which is a MASSIVE contrast to a certain festival in Portugal, which does the opposite.

Not only do they hire staff to test the safety of certain substances - they place signs up saying for example : 'Don't touch the purple pills as they can be considered lethal if ingested with alcohol ' all the while people can safely check the purity of whatever it is they take.

Also they cater for people who have had too much of something by treating them as people and not criminals. Giving them blankets, water and a nice place to fix themselves up.

In the Uk, people are automatically treated as criminals, even with the legal (and in my opinion more dangerous highs).

Education not punishment.

Yes they've written to all music festivals to advise even legal substances should be banned.

As I said, we have written to festival organisers to try to alert them to the fact that these substances, which are often advertised as being legal-what is more, they are not always what they are advertised as being; they may contain quite other substances-are really dangerous and will be illegal.

Plus,the government intends to ban all new chemicals BEFORE they are available on the market.

As we set out in the coalition agreement, we will introduce a system of temporary bans on new psychoactive substances while health issues are considered by independent experts. The underlying purpose of the temporary banning power is to enable Parliament to be highly responsive to emerging new psychoactive substances and, at the same time, provide the advisory council with the time or space that it needs to formulate its full advice. Full details of the temporary banning power will be announced shortly. It is the intention to undertake legislation on this later this year.

And a very very scary statement in the same debate:

One of the problems with the internet, as the House will be aware, is that it is not under the unilateral control of this country; we have to get international co-operation in order to take effective action, which then involves freedom of speech legislation and so on. It is not a simple matter to take websites down-it is very important to get the co-operation of the ISPs. We are working on this on a broader front, not excluding drugs, to try to do something about websites that contain information which is clearly contrary to the public interest and which induce violence and harm in society.

This is not good.

Source

reply to post by Nammu


Basically then, they are making it illegal to be "high" irrespective of how you get there. So now they are trying to mandate a state of mind -- sounds worse than thought control to me.

My opinion is that the human race is devolving; not progressing and/ or society itself has become psychotic.

Wouldn't they then have to ban much of the pharmaceutical market? Painkillers of all grades are still a euphoria-like high. The body releases naturally occurring cemicals in various states that can easily be considered highs.

Don't get high on life while you're there; you might get beaten, which would trigger an adrenaline rush, which is just another high. And now you're an addict.

[edit on 8/28/2010 by eNumbra]

Lets be Honest because to get High has been mans nature for thousands of years so try as they might it, they cant stop it and tying to ban websites is just rediculous as we all know that it wont work anyway

reply to post by mr-lizard



I'm sorry to hear that it changes here from place to place and many bands wont play in negative counties. All my life I've had a hard time understanding why people to scared to look in their own box are so afraid that others might gain insights or an understanding they are incapable of.

Why should you be able to fly to the moon, because they are too fearful of what they might find thus it becomes a banishment in order to make you as stagnant as themselves.

Then there's the conspiracy that those with their minds already open want to keep it all for themselves, so they employ minions to take out the bridges so nobody else can cross.

Contact organizers and request they move it to another location the following year where they will appreciate the tax revenue and let people make their own decisions. Some bands refuse to play certain venues where I live because security or local police spoil the event by harassing and often arresting their customers (fans).

i worked at just about all the uk festivals for the last 4 years and this has been coming along time but ive found the atmosphere seems enuff to get you going its like the air is charged i always got the buzz even after only being home 48hours before going to the next one in 5 months i was only home once aweek but it was fun