UK’s first recreational drug-testing facility opens in Bristol

After a series of pilot tests at UK music festivals, the country’s first recreational drug safety testing facility opened last weekend, in Bristol. The Loop, a drug safety charity, runs the pop-up lab which can test the strength and quality of drugs provided by recreational users.

Both the courts and the police support the testing scheme, patterned after similar schemes used in other European countries, and permit users to have their drugs tested without fear of arrest and prosecution.

As well as testing the drugs for safety, the Loop also counsels drug users for 15 minutes and provides them with safety information about recreational drug use. The Loop chose Bristol as the location for the testing facility because of the extent of drug use compared to the rest of the country. Bristol has the highest percentage of people who inject drugs and the most abusers of crack cocaine and heroin. Also, hospital admissions for drug abuse in the city are twice as high as the national average.

The Loop had tested this scheme at the Boomtown festival and found 10% of people discovered that the drugs they were using were not what they thought they were taking. At the festival, 44% of the people who participated said that they would reduce the doses of the drugs they were using or completely discard them. The festival sponsors reported a 25% decrease in drug-related medical occurrences in 2017.