Published
Thu, Nov 4, 2021, 16:35
- The move follows a number of drink and needle spiking incidents across the UK.
Manchester's The Warehouse Project is offering urine testing kits for people who believe they might have been drugged.
Speaking to The Independent, the club said it implemented the measure over Halloween weekend and plans to keep the tests on-site going forward. These tests are able to identify exactly what substances are in a person's urine, club cofounder Sacha Lord told the UK publication.
Multiple men and women around the UK in recent months say their drinks were spiked, or that they were injected, with date rape drugs such as Rohypnol and GHB. In late October, the National Police Chiefs' Council reported nearly 200 cases of drink spiking over the past two months. The Sussex Police, meanwhile, said it had received "a number of recent reports of people becoming unwell during or after nights out, with some finding puncture marks on their body or believing their drink had been tampered with," NBC News reported on Tuesday. Health officials urge people who think they've been spiked to get tested as soon as possible.
In a recent Twitter post, Lord, who is also the night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, said he had spoken with victims of spiking and called for industry-wide action.
The Warehouse Project is the "first" to launch urine tests on-site, according to Lord. Other venues around the UK, such as Birmingham's The Nightingale Club, offer drink testing kits, in which a liquid is placed on a testing strip and changes colour if a beverage has been tampered with.
Read The Independent's full story for more details.