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Aberdeen pub goers to be drug tested


Chris

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My mate was saying earlier that the Hogshead was using it last night.

Though I think he's still calling the Old School House the Hogshead.

i didnt think they had bouncers? one of the reasons i go in there, i know there just doing a job but, some are total arses! prefer those union st charity guys to bouncers! :swearing:

``sorry not tonight lads, too drunk`` `iv not even had a drink yet mate!`

`` er well, the machine says you have a bit of coke under that finger nail, sorry go away``

`ah well fair doos`

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I think the whole thing is disgusting, and I agree that I would not want to go to a pub that used one of these instruments. After reading the article that Pogofish posted, I can imagine that there will have to be a degree of expertise required to correctly interpret the results, such as how to recognise flawed results. Somehow I don't see staff in pubs getting the appropriate training to use what is essentially a chromatograph.

The Tunnels and the Prince of Wales better not be getting one!

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people had a greater confidence that they could enjoy a night out without fear of encountering drugs

Oh, yes, people are terrified of encountering drugs... except that they are going to bars to consume alcohol ?(

Hopefully enough people would boycott places using these to damage business and thus discourage their use.

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The questions on whether the war on drugs is working, whether drugs are good/bad things, and what constitutes a drug are not the issues here. The real issue is the war on totalitarian fascism.

***

This won't be optional for the pubs and clubs, they are compelled to do whatever the police want them too. The police will just come in and set up shop. Their powers are draconian.

The only accurate means of testing for drug ingestion is a GC/MS machine, and to test someone's urine on that costs 400 a time (probably a lot more than they spent on the drugs). The next most reliable test is the EMIT which is an indicator added to pee. It's false positive rate is something like 40% depending on circumstances. It's only real purpose is pre-screening for the GC/MS to cut costs. The GC/MS is better than 99.99% accurate.

These swab things are massively inaccurate. The police do not currently have the power to exclude someone from a pub simply because this test shows up red, the person would have to be found to be carrying drugs.

They police cannot force anyone to listen to a lecture based solely on the results from the machine. You can politely decline their offer.

If (like me) you are of an anarchistic mindset they you may wish to consider the following programme of civil disobedience:

1) Identify every common or garden substance than is known to cause a false positive for this device. This information will be readily available on the internet.

2) Coat hands in all these things. Or if you are so inclined coat hands in real drugs (it doesn't really matter).

3) Fill pockets with joke objects and/or seemingly unpleasant substances. Use your imagination with this part. Back in 1992 I got searched and they found 500 packets of assorted condoms and a tube of spermicide. That looked good in the paper when it went to court ;) If you are really brave, and can spare 4 days of your life, then try carrying some fake drugs, that will cost them a lot of time, effort, and money... although there is always the danger they will substitute them for real ones back at the station.

4) Find out where the machine is in use.

5) Show up with 100 or so like minded people.

6) Make sure your mates have camera phones discretely rolling throughout.

7) Be sure and shake hands with the police before the test.

8) BONUS POINT: Pretend that though you are willing to be tested you are nervous of the machine (is the swab going to make you ill), and ask the police officer you shook hands with to demo it.

9) Post the video on YouTube then send the link to the newspapers.

10) Repeat this trick until the whole programme is scrapped.

***

Now having said all this I must also add that I am VERY against people carrying drugs out on the town. Due solely to the fact that drugs are illegal, their presence attracts criminal low-life, and those people ruin perfectly good pubs and clubs. This is why I exhibit a ZERO tolerance policy when I encounter drug taking in the vicinity of the bar.

What we are seeing here is a misguided and ill considered attempt by the authorities to crack down on those types. The problem is that they are bending the law by doing this, and if we tolerate that then eventually the fascists will be forcing their way into our homes and swabbing those too with penalty by way of 'on-the-spot' execution.

In LVX.

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From what I've seen recently the police don't seem to have a clue about who to deal with drunk folk, let alone folk on drugs. And the bouncers in town are fucking inconsistant when it comes to chucking people out. Some guy came to talk to me and a buddy last night in Bassment and was quite clearly on something. He wouldn't take no for an answer, kept trying to grab at us as the bouncer walked past and only left when our friend who works behind the bar came over to the table to say hi.

About half an hour later the guy and his group were chucked out because one of them knocked his head on a light hanging over the bar :S

I've never had a problem with the police, I know lots of people love to jump on the band wagon and moan out how they do a useless job but I've always felt sorry for them. It must be a shitty job and they had my sympathy, but in the last few weeks I've seen folk being treated appallingly. A guy was outside Moshulu in an awful state, shaking, crying, couldn't stand up and was perfectly coherrant. A chick had already suspected she'd had her drink spiked that night and was taken away in an ambulance and yet this guy was just left on the pavement and the policement were stepping over him. I understand that 99% of the time folk who are in a mess on a Saturday night are just pissed, but it's their fucing job to look after people, regardless of age, sex or race. So many of them seem to have a total chip on their shoulder and you've got to wonder why they do the job if they have so little time or respect for the people they are supposed to be helping.

Anyways, the fact remains that we all know the bars and clubs where you can get drugs if you want them. Surely the best way to combat this 'anti social behaviour' is to go and bust all the shadey bars where the dealers lurk in the corners? Set up one of these machines in Belmont Bar or Kode and then we'll see what happens.

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The questions on whether the war on drugs is working, whether drugs are good/bad things, and what constitutes a drug are not the issues here. The real issue is the war on totalitarian fascism.

***

This won't be optional for the pubs and clubs, they are compelled to do whatever the police want them too. The police will just come in and set up shop. Their powers are draconian.

The only accurate means of testing for drug ingestion is a GC/MS machine, and to test someone's urine on that costs 400 a time (probably a lot more than they spent on the drugs). The next most reliable test is the EMIT which is an indicator added to pee. It's false positive rate is something like 40% depending on circumstances. It's only real purpose is pre-screening for the GC/MS to cut costs. The GC/MS is better than 99.99% accurate.

These swab things are massively inaccurate. The police do not currently have the power to exclude someone from a pub simply because this test shows up red, the person would have to be found to be carrying drugs.

They police cannot force anyone to listen to a lecture based solely on the results from the machine. You can politely decline their offer.

If (like me) you are of an anarchistic mindset they you may wish to consider the following programme of civil disobedience:

1) Identify every common or garden substance than is known to cause a false positive for this device. This information will be readily available on the internet.

2) Coat hands in all these things. Or if you are so inclined coat hands in real drugs (it doesn't really matter).

3) Fill pockets with joke objects and/or seemingly unpleasant substances. Use your imagination with this part. Back in 1992 I got searched and they found 500 packets of assorted condoms and a tube of spermicide. That looked good in the paper when it went to court ;) If you are really brave, and can spare 4 days of your life, then try carrying some fake drugs, that will cost them a lot of time, effort, and money... although there is always the danger they will substitute them for real ones back at the station.

4) Find out where the machine is in use.

5) Show up with 100 or so like minded people.

6) Make sure your mates have camera phones discretely rolling throughout.

7) Be sure and shake hands with the police before the test.

8) BONUS POINT: Pretend that though you are willing to be tested you are nervous of the machine (is the swab going to make you ill), and ask the police officer you shook hands with to demo it.

9) Post the video on YouTube then send the link to the newspapers.

10) Repeat this trick until the whole programme is scrapped.

***

Now having said all this I must also add that I am VERY against people carrying drugs out on the town. Due solely to the fact that drugs are illegal, their presence attracts criminal low-life, and those people ruin perfectly good pubs and clubs. This is why I exhibit a ZERO tolerance policy when I encounter drug taking in the vicinity of the bar.

What we are seeing here is a misguided and ill considered attempt by the authorities to crack down on those types. The problem is that they are bending the law by doing this, and if we tolerate that then eventually the fascists will be forcing their way into our homes and swabbing those too with penalty by way of 'on-the-spot' execution.

In LVX.

sherbet dips all round then :gringo:

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***

Now having said all this I must also add that I am VERY against people carrying drugs out on the town. Due solely to the fact that drugs are illegal, their presence attracts criminal low-life, and those people ruin perfectly good pubs and clubs. This is why I exhibit a ZERO tolerance policy when I encounter drug taking in the vicinity of the bar.

In LVX.

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***

Now having said all this I must also add that I am VERY against people carrying drugs out on the town. Due solely to the fact that drugs are illegal, their presence attracts criminal low-life, and those people ruin perfectly good pubs and clubs. This is why I exhibit a ZERO tolerance policy when I encounter drug taking in the vicinity of the bar.

In LVX.

:laughing: Quite right too..... slaps fist on table....

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The only accurate means of testing for drug ingestion is a GC/MS machine, and to test someone's urine on that costs 400 a time (probably a lot more than they spent on the drugs). The next most reliable test is the EMIT which is an indicator added to pee. It's false positive rate is something like 40% depending on circumstances. It's only real purpose is pre-screening for the GC/MS to cut costs. The GC/MS is better than 99.99% accurate.

EMIT assays are individually designed for individual drugs (or closely related drugs), so the false positive rates vary a little across the different types. However, none of them work at a 40% false positive rate, that's completely impractical and I think it must have come from some skewed statistics. For example, 80-90% of people on buflomedil give a false positive on one of the amphetamine EMIT tests. However, not everyone in the population is on buflomedil, so the false positive rate on the amphetamine EMIT across a normal section of the population isn't anywhere near 80-90%. In fact, it's closer to 1%.

It's also worth pointing out that any test also has a false negative rate too, and it's usually higher than the false positive rate.

False positives would obviously get ruled out at the GC/MS stage, but a false result on an EMIT would be a crap way to end your evening out - So this whole testing in venues/pubs is absolute bollocks in my opinion too.

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EMIT assays are individually designed for individual drugs (or closely related drugs), so the false positive rates vary a little across the different types. However, none of them work at a 40% false positive rate, that's completely impractical and I think it must have come from some skewed statistics. For example, 80-90% of people on buflomedil give a false positive on one of the amphetamine EMIT tests. However, not everyone in the population is on buflomedil, so the false positive rate on the amphetamine EMIT across a normal section of the population isn't anywhere near 80-90%. In fact, it's closer to 1%.

It's also worth pointing out that any test also has a false negative rate too, and it's usually higher than the false positive rate.

False positives would obviously get ruled out at the GC/MS stage, but a false result on an EMIT would be a crap way to end your evening out - So this whole testing in venues/pubs is absolute bollocks in my opinion too.

My figures came from EROWID whom I trust more than the people that run the labs for money. Having said that I haven't read that section on EROWID for a while. I doubt that EMIT is anything like as accurate as 99%. Just look at all the foodstuffs an common OTCs that create a false positive on it.

EDIT: had another quick look at this. The only people claiming that EMIT tests are accurate are law enforcement and the labs that perform the test, and even then there are a few important caveats hidden in the small print.

EMIT testing is only accurate to so many parts per billion, below that threshold it is completely inaccurate. The claims of high accuracy stem from an assumption that a 'guilty' person will have over so many parts per billion in their system. The test itself cannot discern the actual concentration and only gives a binary result. Furthermore the majority of the labs that perform these tests are completely unregulated.

Nasal decongestants such as Vicks Nasal Spray, and Sudafed, may cause false positives for amphetamines.

Poppy seeds like those on a dinner roll, which cause false positives for opiates. Even the GCMS test still confuses poppy seeds with heroin... that's because poppy seeds contain heroin. I actually know someone who was fired for this very reason, when the drug test result prevailed over the totally fucking obvious.

Any medicine containing Ibuprofen may cause false positives for marijuana.

Antibiotics such as amoxicillin or ampicillin may cause false positives for cocaine. Specifically people taking antibiotics for zits and VD need to be really careful with this.

Some natural body enzymes cause false positives, melanin, the natural pigment which makes skin dark, can cause false positives for marijuana. So best not visit a solarium before your *COUGH* random drugs test :)

So yeah umm 99% accurate for anyone that has not taken any of the above, did a shit load of drugs yesterday, and was subjected to a double EMIT tests, you know, just in case the first one created a false negative LOL. That in a nutshell is what the small print says.

Isn't it a fucked up world when even under the best possible scenario a company would still be willing to sacrifice 1% of it's workforce who are entirely innocent just to catch 1% of it's workforce who are using cocaine where that only constitutes 50% of the actual cocaine users present. In other words a 33% strike rate. Think about it - let's assume that 2% of a workforce are taking coke. A double EMIT test is administered to the entire workforce. Due to false negatives (these are common due to masking where something the person has eaten may overwhelm the test) only half the actual coke users are likely to test positive. But another 1% of the workforce who are entirely innocent will also falsely test positive. Hmm.

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EMIT assays are individually designed for individual drugs (or closely related drugs), so the false positive rates vary a little across the different types. However, none of them work at a 40% false positive rate, that's completely impractical and I think it must have come from some skewed statistics. For example, 80-90% of people on buflomedil give a false positive on one of the amphetamine EMIT tests. However, not everyone in the population is on buflomedil, so the false positive rate on the amphetamine EMIT across a normal section of the population isn't anywhere near 80-90%. In fact, it's closer to 1%.

It's also worth pointing out that any test also has a false negative rate too, and it's usually higher than the false positive rate.

False positives would obviously get ruled out at the GC/MS stage, but a false result on an EMIT would be a crap way to end your evening out - So this whole testing in venues/pubs is absolute bollocks in my opinion too.

?( oh my poor little brain, these kinda posts confuse me, i mean im sure its all good stuff but, its just me, and it being monday morning too ?(

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My figures came from EROWID whom I trust more than the people that run the labs for money. Having said that I haven't read that section on EROWID for a while. I doubt that EMIT is anything like as accurate as 99%. Just look at all the foodstuffs an common OTCs that create a false positive on it.

EROWID's got a fairly specific agenda that makes it likely to over-report the inaccuracies of the tests, tho. I didn't get my information from labs running the tests for money or as a program of public control. I use tests like these on a daily basis through my work, plus there's a wealth of indepdendent, peer-reviewed research on their various accuracies and inaccuracies.

There are definitely some factors that will affect your likelihood of getting a false positive on these tests, but that's as an individual and not as a population - If you get my meaning. They could test 100 people, 99 of which aren't on buflomedil for example, but that 1 person that is has an 80-90% chance of being tested positive for amphetamine use. Overall, that's still a 1% false positive rate.

Anyhoo - The figures are up from the weekend's fun and frivolity with the ITEMISER machine. Whoot.

The quoted false positive rates for this machine is <1% for swabbed samples and 0.1% for air samples. I assume they were only doing swabbed samples on the street, so let's assume a false positive rate of 1%...

According to BBC NEWS | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Revellers tested by drugs machine 753 people were tested, 13 people were searched and 2 reported to the Procurator Fiscal.

We could assume that between 7 - 8 of those were false positives. Would be interesting to know if any of the two that were actually arrested were found to be holding despite getting a false positive.

Did anyone from here get tested this weekend, then?

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EROWID's got a fairly specific agenda that makes it likely to over-report the inaccuracies of the tests, tho. I didn't get my information from labs running the tests for money or as a program of public control. I use tests like these on a daily basis through my work, plus there's a wealth of indepdendent, peer-reviewed research on their various accuracies and inaccuracies.

There are definitely some factors that will affect your likelihood of getting a false positive on these tests, but that's as an individual and not as a population - If you get my meaning. They could test 100 people, 99 of which aren't on buflomedil for example, but that 1 person that is has an 80-90% chance of being tested positive for amphetamine use. Overall, that's still a 1% false positive rate.

Anyhoo - The figures are up from the weekend's fun and frivolity with the ITEMISER machine. Whoot.

The quoted false positive rates for this machine is <1% for swabbed samples and 0.1% for air samples. I assume they were only doing swabbed samples on the street, so let's assume a false positive rate of 1%...

According to BBC NEWS | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Revellers tested by drugs machine 753 people were tested, 13 people were searched and 2 reported to the Procurator Fiscal.

We could assume that between 7 - 8 of those were false positives. Would be interesting to know if any of the two that were actually arrested were found to be holding despite getting a false positive.

Did anyone from here get tested this weekend, then?

Please check my EDIT. Through working in HR I am privy to the results of these tests, and in my experience the accuracy shockingly poor, and the stats are heavily massaged by the interested parties. Everyone has an agenda, especially scientists.

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Please check my EDIT. Through working in HR I am privy to the results of these tests, and in my experience the accuracy shockingly poor, and the stats are heavily massaged by the interested parties. Everyone has an agenda, especially scientists.

But you're a self-proclaimed anarchist, so of course you'd say that about anyone perceived to have authority ;) And I'm hurt, after all - who do you think does all this work to show how accurate these tests are? For example, some weight-gain supplements contain compounds that can give false-positives on amphetamine EMIT tests, and that was work carried out by the University of Aberdeen. I can proudly say my urine was used in that very experiment. Mind you, I did have to carry my own piss around with me in a big plastic bottle for 72 hours. It's not all glamour, this science lark.

Just to be clear, we've both got the same end-point view - That drug screening on the streets is a complete infringement of people's rights, and the only difference in our opinion is over the question of false positive rates. Your edit, whilst interesting, hasn't added anything that we've not already agreed upon - That these tests aren't infalliable and that some conditions will give you a positive when you're actually in the clear.

Even a 1% false positive rate is unacceptable when it comes to civil liberties, as you've already pointed out with your example above. Screening only works from a population based perspective, for either drug screening or from a health perspective (e.g. breast cancer screening via mammographs). It's a balance between the number of people you need to inconvenience via the number of people that will benefit. I fail to see how the benefit to society can be justified for random drug screening on the streets, without due cause, considering how many people will be inconvenienced to find a few 'wrong-doers'.

With that all in mind, I don't doubt your experience, but the only thing we're disagreeing over is this 40% false positive rate. We'd both agree that statistics are easily manipulated, or are often presented without the full context required to interpret them properly, so I'm just querying the validity of this number based on what I know from the literature and also my own experience. It seems to me that I'm thinking of false positive rates as being the overall, global percentage of individuals who will get an erroneous positive result, whilst you might be thinking of a very specific set of conditions affecting an individual.

Let's say we've got an EMIT test for Tennants lager, to sort out who has been drinking pish. If you drink Tennants, this test should finger you out - But there's always a small percentage of people who will slip through the test. Maybe they had a Tennants shandy, so it's too weak for the test to detect accurately, for example. However, the big problem with this test is that people who drink Stella have a high chance of testing positive for Tennants. Let's say 40% of Stella drinkers, who have had a pint of wifebeater within the last 2 hours, will test positive for Tennants. That's 40 out of 100 recent Stella drinkers. As a Stella drinker, your odds are pretty high that you'll be branded a Tennants fan with obvious social repercussions.

However, not everyone who takes the test drinks Stella. Some drink Leffe, because they're rich and dislike street fights. Some mooch cokes all night. Neither Leffe, coke or anything else interferes with this Tennants EMIT test. So the question that affects the false positive rate of the whole population of our theoretical bar is how many Stella drinkers are in the pub. Let's say it's a busy night and there's 1000 people shoved in a popular dock-side drinking-hole, of which 10 have been drinking Stella. Of course, this being a respectable place to be, no-one is drinking Tennants.

So 10 Stella drinkers, with a 40% chance of their individual test being positive. Which gives 4 people with a positive result for drinking Tennants. Their friends point and laugh. The rest of the bar, however, test clean. So that's 4 out of a 1000 people who tested positive who weren't, which is a false positive rate of 0.4%.

My point of view seems to come from that 0.4% population perspective, whereas I think yours is from the individual, Stella-drinkers point of view. Both are correct, per se, but the 0.4% is a more accurate representation of the false positive rate for a whole population.

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