CLUBS ARE URGED TO HELP STOP GUN CRIME

Home Office Guidelines Say Owners Should Install Metal Detectors But Also
Urge 'Chill-Out Rooms' For Drug Victims

Club owners need to install metal detectors as a priority to curb the
increase in drug-related shootings according to Home Office guidelines
published yesterday. Ministers believe the recent rise in gun crime,
particularly linked to clubs specialising in gangsta rap and garage music,
has become a problem, not just in hardcore inner-city clubs but in all
major cities.

The Home Office believes it is no longer enough for clubs to search
customers by hand but it is now a priority for them to install either
expensive "search arches", which cost UKP12,000 a time, or hand-held
scanning devices to keep guns out of clubs.

So far fewer than 20 clubs in London have the necessary equipment. The
authorities believe that owners should fund the equipment from profits and
that those who carry guns are often linked to drug dealers defending their
territory.

The advice is contained in the Home Office "harm minimisation" booklet,
Safer Clubbing, which updates advice on how to ensure that the risks faced
by the 4m people who regularly go clubbing, some of whom take a range of
drugs, are reduced as far as possible.

The number of deaths linked to ecstasy has grown from eight in 1993 to 36
in 2000 mainly as a result of acute heat stroke. Cocaine, which the
government believes is being increasingly used as a club drug, was linked
to 90 deaths last year.

The official guidelines encourage all clubs to provide adequate supplies of
drinking water, avoid overcrowding, and to ensure the presence of first
aiders who can treat those intoxicated with drugs or alcohol. All clubs
should also provide "chill-out rooms" or treatment areas, where clubbers
suffering from the negative effects of drugs can recover in a calm and cool
environment.

The Home Office drugs minister, Bob Ainsworth, yesterday defended the
advice from the charge that the government was "going soft" on drugs. "We
are not asking club owners to condone the use of drugs on their premises.
But we have to recognise that some clubbers will continue to ignore the
risks and carry on taking dangerous drugs. If we cannot stop them taking
drugs then we must be prepared to take steps to reduce the harm that they
may cause themselves," he said.

The guidelines say that however efficient the measures that are taken to
prevent drugs being brought into and sold at a venue, many clubbers see
drug taking as integral to a good night out and it has to be accepted that
significant numbers will take drugs before, during and/or after their
clubbing. The report says that while drug abuse overall has stabilised
clubbers are taking more drugs than previous generations in far heavier
quantities and in a greater mixture than before.

The Home Office, however, refuses to endorse the Dutch practice of making
ecstasy testing kits available in clubs saying they fuel the myth that
ecstasy-related deaths arise from impurities in the drug rather than the
way it is used.

Instead, the official advice says it is better to analyse the contents of
"amnesty boxes" and confiscated drugs to keep up with drug trends. It had
enabled the authorities last year to identify 4MTA, a pill which had been
developed in the US as anti-depressant, but was being sold in British clubs
and had been linked to three deaths.

Safer clubbing

Free drinking water and proper air conditioning

Searching by trained door staff and metal detectors to spot guns and other
weapons

Door staff to be police approved to prevent them drug dealing

Trained first aiders and "chill out" areas for those with drug and alcohol
problems

Clubs that fail to comply to face closure