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Music Festivals, Including Reading & Leeds, Want To Let Fans Test Their Drugs

Between six to ten music festivals are expected to let fans test their drugs this summer.

Between six to ten music festivals are expected to let fans test their drugs this summer. The welcome news comes after a series of drug-related deaths at music festivals, including T in the Park and Leeds, in recent years.

Melvin Benn, the head of Festival Republic, who organise Reading & Leeds, Latitude, Wireless and more, spoke to the Press Association about helping to ensure festival-goers' safety: “We talked about it during the summer of last year and the reality is that I took a decision that unless and until the NPCC supported the principle of it, it was difficult for us to move forward on it.”

Benn continued: "We'll see it this year for definite... at Leeds I'm pretty certain.

"It's taken a long time and it won't be at every festival, but where we think there is a need to do it we will be doing it."

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This isn’t the first time a music festival has made moves to ensure fans’ safety by allowing them to test their drugs. Secret Garden Party, which takes place in Cambridgeshire, tested over 200 fans’ drugs last year with the help of The Loop.

The Loop is an organisation that conducts forensic testing on drugs seized by police forces. At Secret Garden Party, The Loop tested drugs from over 200 people and toldthem what was in them, before destroying the drugs.

Founder of the organisation, Fiona Measham from Durham University, said the scheme's expansion was "radical".

"It's really exciting that police are prioritising health and safety over criminal justice at festivals," she said.

Hopefully, the option to have drugs tested at music festivals will be more widely available in the future.

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