R.I.P. Club Culture? Fusion Says NO!

A somewhat grim Friday evening saw me queuing outside the Zap for Zero Culture’s latest offering – an all-nighter featuring the Breakfastaz, Utah Saints, Deekline & Ivory and local breaks talent. The night was great; the music was spot on and my first venture back to the Zap since its days as Union was well worth the £7 I paid. Rather than the usual business of telling you how wasted I was, I’m going to write about the rather worrying increase in security including a heavy police presence on the door, which appears to be part of a countrywide movement to crack down on drugs, clubs and general outage.

We’re all used to bouncers (see Marek’s April article on the subject) and their tendency towards power abuse. What I, and everyone else who entered the Zap on Friday experienced was above and beyond the usual intimidation tactics. It’s well within a club’s rights to check identification, and we all know its against the law to serve underage drinkers, licensing laws, blah blah blah, but come on guys, credit your door staff with a little intelligence. Can you not tell a cocky 16 year old who has wandered down West Street from Weatherspoons from a grown man, regular visitor to your premises and clearly over the legal age for alcohol consumption? Obviously not without a passport for verification and four uniformed police officers to make sure there’s nothing amiss.

And that was just on the outside. On entering the club, another two police officers were stationed by the till who informed me that they would be swabbing my hands to search for traces of drugs as a condition of entry into the club tonight. With little choice, I submitted to this test and, on getting the all clear, proceeded inside. Others in my party were also cleared, with the exception of one friend who, it was claimed, had traces of cocaine on his hands. He was asked where he had been before arriving at the Zap and on answering, was allowed to proceed without further ado.

I found this whole escapade fairly unnerving. I was made to feel like a criminal and even once inside the club was very much aware of the oversized men dressed in black paroling around, checking for misbehaviour. The effectiveness of this was somewhat reduced once the club started to fill up, which it quickly did, or maybe with every passing drink I just started to care less.
According to a news report on bibble-shite station Southern FM, police swabbed 1500 people, searched 130 and arrested 11, mainly for possession of class A’s. If these statistics are to be believed, that’s 11 people whose night didn’t go entirely to plan. So what steps can be taken to stop this happening to you in the future. Leave the drugs at home, obviously, but as the following research shows, you wouldn’t need to have anything on you to be marked out as a suspicious character.

Entering the Club

With or without police assistance, clubs have the right to search anyone entering the premises and must provide searchers of both sexes. They can refuse entry to anyone who refuses a search and can only insist on searching outside clothes, pockets or bags. They must conduct the search in a decent manner and with respect to the individual. They cannot insist on a more intimate search without your permission. Legally, they can only conduct strip searches and searches inside clothes with your permission in private with an independent witness.

Only the police or customs and excise officials are empowered to search you without agreement, if they have reason to suspect suspicious behaviour – if a door supervisor searches inside your clothes or performs a strip search without your permission they may be charged with assault.

Swab Tests and the Law

Legally speaking, you are not obliged to give a swab test to the police. Any attempt in this situation to get a swab test result without your consent would constitute assault. Simply refusing to give a swab test would not, according the laws that govern this practice, constitute grounds for searching on the basis of suspicious behaviour.

However, according to Newsquest Media Group (2006), plain-clothes officers will often be present to detain any person who refuses the test and decides to leave the queue. This ties in with police comment, “If someone refuses, then it is a tick in the first box of suspicion”, (www.ukcia.org).

Industry experts also take issue with this coercive attitude displayed by the police. Peter Coulson, legal advisor to the Morning Advertiser (trade magazine for license holders) makes a valid point: “People may wish to drop out of a queue on principle, but that shouldn’t raise suspicion of drug carrying and it smacks of guilty until proved innocent,”

Pressure is also being applied to venues – under the terms of the new licensing, clubs, bars and pubs must take steps to stop drug taking on their premises. This means complying with the police and their current strategy for dealing with drugs. Essentially, clubs owners and stuck between a rock and a hard place – they are effectively being threatened with the loss, or non-renewal of their licence if they do not agree to these heavy handed, intimidatory practices.

A leading human rights group in the UK, Liberty, finds this style of testing worrying in its implications, with a spokesman saying: “This is an extremely questionable use of police powers. The police cannot force someone who is not under arrest to take a drug test but they are implying they can. To then use a perfectly legitimate refusal to comply as part of the justification for suspicion is an abuse of policing powers.”

Swab Tests – What Can They Tell the Police

The samples are placed in a laptop computer – available to the police at a cost of £40,000 each – and will show up either green, amber or red on the screen. A red result will be taken as an indication of definite contact with drugs and the police will take proceedings from there as they see fit. (www.ukcia.org)

The machine can detect traces of drugs several days after a person has come into contact with them, even if they have washed their hands. The machine analyses the swab paper for a range of drugs including cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and cannabis, and can detect the equivalent in drugs of a grain of salt in an Olympic-sized swimming pool (BBC, 15/06/05)

The mystery £40,000 laptop that is being used to conduct these tests is called the “Itemiser” and is manufactured by GE Interlogix. An overview of the technology that is used in their products is provided by the company in a demonstration video on their website, but its jargon filled so good luck making any sense of it.

False Positives?

Although the police are unsurprisingly reluctant to give any details regarding the workings of the machine, it seems likely that the machine, which gives very simple answers (red, amber or green), would be unable to differentiate between various benzopidiazepines or opiates; hence there is a high risk of false positives for people who have used or come into contact with lawful substances. To my mind, the presence of a positive result should still not in itself be grounds for a search, especially when we consider how easy it is to pick up traces of drugs from just about anywhere – considering all you need for a red or amber result is enough on your hand to equate to a grain of sand in an Olympic swimming pool.

Its not just clubbers like my companion who test falsely positive for drugs. Conservative Welsh Assembly member William Graham tested positive for Cannabis at a demonstration of an Itemiser recently purchased by the local police force. “”I can’t think where I could have got it from,” said Mr. Graham, quoted in an article by the BBC (15/06/05) which concludes he probably picked it up from a door handle. Social Justice Minister Edwina Hart’s hands were similarly ‘cross contaminated’ also bringing a positive test.

I find it interesting how, when traces of drugs are found on the Social Justice Minister’s hands, it is assumed to be a case of cross contamination. I wonder how receptive the police would be to this as an excuse from people queuing for a nightclub. “You could pick it up from anywhere couldn’t you?” said Ms. Hart. You certainly could. From beer mats, bank notes, toilet doors, bus seats, someone else’s jacket – just about any conceivable surface.

So – to recap – The police can’t search you without grounds for suspicion – drug swab tests provide those grounds and anyone, whether they have knowingly handled drugs or not – could easily return a positive result when we consider the microscopic levels the Itemiser picks up. If the police decide to search you, you can’t refuse, but they cannot perform a strip search without taking you to a police station. If the police search you after you returned a positive result from a swab test and find illegal substances about your person, they will at best confiscate your stash, and most likely arrest you, as allegedly was the fate of 11 zap-goers last week.

You are not obliged to give a swab test to the police. Any attempt in this situation to get a swab test result without your consent would constitute assault. In unfortunate reality, it seems there will more often than not be a plain clothes officer waiting to stop people leaving the queue as this in itself is considered suspicious behaviour, although this is far from officially recognised -unsurprisingly, as this is a clear example of police using coercive powers. Not to mention the fact that if you have already purchased a ticket for the event in question, there will be little or no chance of a refund.

What can you do?

Before you get in the queue

• Be aware of how your hands can become cross-contaminated with illegal substances and take steps to avoid this.

• Think carefully about what is in your bag, pockets and outer clothes before you leave the house. Ensure there is nothing present in any of these places that could end you up in a police cell.

If you are queuing for entry to a club and it becomes apparent that the police are conducting hand swabs:

• Don’t panic – you might turn up a positive result and you might not – the likelihood is that whether you have actually handled drugs or not will have little bearing on the outcome. Remember also that the use of dummy machines is rumoured – at £40,000 each, police forces are limited in the number of genuine machines they can afford.

• Think in advance about all the possible ways your hands, like those of the Social Justice Minister, Edwina Hart, could have become cross contaminated – there are plenty. Especially if you work in a pharmacy, or are taking a multitude of legally available medication. See www.ukcia.org and www.thegooddrugsguide.co.uk for further info on this.

• Think carefully before you leave the queue on principle. There may be plain-clothes police officers waiting in the wings. Don’t let intimidation ruin your night out.

If you get a positive result:

• Express your nonchalance – drugs are everywhere, who knows where you got it from. Don’t mistake this for being cocky.

• Answer whatever questions you are asked in a casual, helpful tone.

• Submit to a search if required – you haven’t got a choice anyway; making a fuss will only make it worse.

• Know your rights – too complex to list here, but comprehensive information is widely available online.

In conclusion

The debate on drugs shows no signs of abating – people on both sides are unwilling to budge on their opinions and the unfortunate truth for club culture is that it is those on the other side of the coin in the position of power. This doesn’t mean clubbers don’t have a valid point of view, or a voice. Human Rights groups, such as Liberty, have expressed their concerns arising from the use of this technology. Others are more concerned that at £40,000 for a single laptop, not to mention police man-hours on top of this, we are not seeing value for money through this scheme – As a taxpayer, you have a right to express your opinions on how your money is spent. Landlords and licensees are worried that these developments will have an adverse affect on their livelihoods – innocent people don’t want to be made to feel like criminals on a night out and will most likely vote with their feet. Despite the fact that this operation is being billed as “a joint operation” between club owners and the police, this is far from the truth. No one disputes the club owners need to combat drug usage in accordance with the law, but it is wrong that this heavy-handed approach is being forced upon them.

Check out the letter written and responses received by a representative from ukcia.org to the home office, local MP and to the Chief Constable at Staffordshire Police (who piloted the Itemiser). Anyone who feels the urge should be encouraged to write a similar letter to the relevant authorities in Brighton highlighting their particular concerns.

It’s been said this is one more nail in the coffin for club culture – but as far as I can see, club culture, especially in Brighton is alive and well – and, as the summer approaches, set to stay that way.

Further info:

Manufacturers of the Itemiser www.geindustrial.com/cwc/home
Human Rights group liberty www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk
Web-home of the legalise cannabis movement www.ukcia.org
Drug-related info www.thegooddrugsguide.co.uk
Trade magazine for licensees www.morningadvertiser.co.uk
Related message board discussion bb.4four.org/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=12466

Words: The Marror Stuffer