https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/436/pubtests.shtml

Police in Sussex are broadening a program that requires people wishing to enter pubs to submit to on-the-spot drug tests. They also say they will detain anyone who refuses to take a drug test. The tests will be conducted randomly at selected establishments, police added.

Sussex police last year purchased an ion tracker device, which works by analyzing a swab taken from a person's hand for the presence of a controlled substance. Results are available within 10 seconds.

The program is already underway, said Chris Ball, acting chief inspector for Mid Sussex. "We have been running pilot operations in the three towns of Mid Sussex -- Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and East Grinstead -- since December 2005 and the reaction of the customers has been positive. We have now reviewed the way we will carry out the operations in future, and I want to reassure the licensees that my aim is to work with them and not against them. It's with this co-operation that we will succeed in making the towns even safer and combat the use of drugs."

Not surprisingly, few are buying Ball's cheery words. Pub owners' groups and civil libertarians are crying foul. "These plans are out of all proportion and to involve the trade in such an initiative without some form of national policy or legislation is a step too far," legal analyst Peter Coulson told the Morning Advertiser. "It places licensees between a rock and a hard place in terms of customers and the police, but I am particularly concerned about the queue drop-out scenario. 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," he said.

And while Ball said bar customers had reacted positively, pub owners in Sussex scoffed. "I can see this being exceedingly unpopular with any law-abiding citizen," said one pub owner from Lewes. "Customers will simply not turn up at a pub if they suspect they are going to have to go through this sort of testing. We want to work with the police in the fight against drugs, but we have to balance this with the effect that swab testing might have on business. I have grave concerns about the implications for my license and livelihood."

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