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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Computerised drug testing ruled out
Essex Chronicle Friday 13 Jun 2003 COMPUTERISED drug testing will not be introduced at Chelmsford's V2003 festival, despite being used at a similar event in Staffordshire, say Essex Police. The device asks festival-goers to provide a swab sample taken from their hand, which is then inserted into a £40,000 drug detection machine the size of a laptop computer The machine will then flash green, amber or red to show whether any drugs residue has been detected. But Sgt Chris White, the Chelmsford festival's division's operational co-ordinator revealed: "Essex Police will not be using this at the V2003 concert. One of the main things for the police at the concert is to target the drug dealers as opposed to the users." Sgt White said although it is a voluntary test, anyone who refused to take part, could be searched by officers. He said that officers tried out the computer test at a Stafford night club last month as 190 people queued to get in, and although six tested positive, no drugs were found on them. "We believe there might be an issue of human rights." "We all accept drugs are available at festivals, it's a fact of life, but the big dangers are the dealers in hard drugs. These are the people we want to target and will continue to target as in recent years," he said. A spokesperson for the human righjts group Liberty said: "Police cannot force anyone to take a random drug test. Yet if people refuse,officers could view this with suspicsion and then decide to search them anyway."
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