Parklife’s Sacha Lord says Home Office decision to block drug testing at festival was 'dangerous and stupid'

Sacha Lord has said that home secretary Suella Braverman will have ‘blood on her hands’ over a decision to enforce licences for drug testing at clubs and festivals. The Parklife co-founder and night time economy advisor to Andy Burnham made the comments on a scathing post to Instagram.

It came after the Home Office said that the festival could not test drugs confiscated from festival goers, as it has done with drug testing charity The Loop since 2014, without a special licence.

Never before has a licence been necessary for the practice, with the festival organisers and The Loop having their own arrangement with local police. Speaking to The Guardian last week, Lord called the move ‘senseless’ and ‘a huge miss-step’ by the government.

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“I want to talk to you about drugs,” he says in the post. “You may have seen in The Guardian exactly what happened at Parklife last week. It’s disgusting.

“Since 2014, we’ve been testing drugs on site at Parklife. If there is anything that is worrying to the medics on site, we’ll put out an alert. But last Wednesday the Home Office turned around and said ‘nah, you’re not doing it’.

“We tried to come up with a plan B, to go to Manchester University, and they blocked us again there. This is coming from the Home Office, the home secretary Suella Braverman. Drug testing saves lives. It is that simple. It’s going on, we don’t condone it. But let’s take the sensible approach.

“And I’m telling you now, if there are any drug-related deaths at festivals this summer that we think could have been prevented by drugs testing, well blood on your hands Suella Braverman. Bang out of order.”

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Lord added: “Festivals