'Zero amnesty' on illegal drugs at Electric Picnic warns promoter

Anyone caught with illegal drugs at Electric Picnic by the Laois Gardaí this weekend could be "wheeled to the prison" according to the festival promoter.

Melvin Benn has warned that despite a new anonymous HSE drugs testing facility on site, there is "zero amnesty".

"The HSE and the Minister approached me to see whether I would offer support to the general campaign and I'm delighted to do so. Ultimately anything that makes people safer is something that we should be doing.

"Let's not beat about the bush. Drugs are still illegal and they're not any less illegal at Electric Picnic because the Health Service Executive pilot is here. If the Chief Super catches you with drugs, trust me he will wheel you to the prison. He won't hesitate. He's very clear on that. But at the same time, what we can do to help, we should do.

"Ultimately, the best thing to stay safe is not to take prohibited drugs. It's not that complicated," the festival promoter said.

He said there is no amnesty preventing Garda from searching and charging anyone walking to the drugs testing point.

"There's absolutely no amnesty whatsoever. There is an opportunity for people to surrender drugs and put them into a safe place and if they are arriving with them, of course I would urge them to do that. But there is zero amnesty. If people surrender before they are about to get checked there is no recrimination. But if they walk past that surrender bin and are still caught with them, in fact it's almost worse because they've been given the opportunity to surrender them. 

"We've been using surrender bins and things like that for many years and we do back-of-house testing. Effectively we've been doing back-of-house testing here at the picnic forever. We haven't been doing it on site, but anything that gets pulled in by the Gardaí gets sent away immediately to test. You'd have seen in 2018 and 2019 that at times we would put drug warnings on about specific tablets that have got bigger strength than people are normally used to. It's not too much of a change but it's a much more public stance on it," Mr Benn said. 

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The HSE announced a month ago that they will pilot an anonymous drugs testing tent at Electric Picnic as part of its ongoing 'Safer Nightlight' programme. It aims to obtain substances at a designated tent at Electric Picnic from people who choose to anonymously submit substances to a 'surrender bin'. The HSE can then identify and communicate if extra dangerous substances are in circulation. It will also be in a position to analyse substances of concern identified by medics.

Over 100 cases of drugs possession at the 2019 Electric Picnic were dealth with in one day at Portlaoise District Court last April.  All those who appeared were subsequently told to make a donation of €300 to the court poor box by Judge Catherine Staines. First time offences were struck out. The defendents included students and young professionals from all over the country while the drugs involved included cocaine, cannabis and MDMA.