Safety plan put forward for nightclub drug users

The Government is so concerned at the number of nightclubbers dying from ecstasy and other illegal substances that it will tell club owners and licensing authorities today to provide safe facilities for drug users.

A Home Office official said the instruction to venues to provide special measures aimed at catering for clubbers under the influence of illegal drugs was an acknowledgement that a significant section of British society viewed drug-taking as "an integral part of their night out".

Clubs will be advised to ensure adequate supplies of free water to prevent drug users from dehydrating and to provide good ventilation and areas where clubbers can cool down to guard against overheating. Suggestions will also be made to regulate the beat of the music to reduce the risk of drug users suffering hyperthermia on the dancefloor.

Clubs will also be told that they ought to provide a separate treatment room so that clubbers who are suffering from the negative effects can recover in a calm and cool environment. Staff should be trained in first aid so that they can treat customers who have become intoxicated with drugs or alcohol, according to the Home Office's guidelines, called Safer Clubbing.

Publication of the guidelines follows a claim by the National Criminal Intelligence Service that 100 million ecstasy pills are consumed in Britain a year. The number of deaths linked to ecstasy rose from eight in 1993 to 36 in 2000. Cocaine, which the Government believes is being increasingly used as a club drug, was linked to 90 deaths in 2000.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Our research has shown that drug use (among the whole population) has stabilised but that, as a group, clubbers are taking more drugs than previous generations, far heavier quantities and a mixture of drugs ... Unfortunately there are many young people who see taking drugs as an integral part of their night out."

The spokesman said the guide was designed to help avoid "exacerbating" health risks faced by drug-using clubbers. He said "environmental factors" often played a key part in drug-related deaths, many of which were avoidable. "The guide clearly identifies that a 'Just Say No' campaign to clubbers is likely to be ineffective because they are already confirmed drug users," he said.

The launch of the report today by the Home Office minister Robert Ainsworth comes amid claims that drugs are so widely available in Britain that demand is at "saturation point".

Danny Kushlick, director of drugs think-tank Transform, said: "Drug use has stabilised, not because the Government is doing a great job, but because there will always be a level of demand in any population and that is now being met. Recreational drug users can now access drugs whenever they want."

Viv Craske, the senior editor of the dance music magazine Mixmag, which commissioned research last month that found that 98 per cent of its readers used ecstasy, said the price of the drug had fallen from £9 to £4 a pill in the last three years.

He said anecdotal evidence suggested ecstasy was increasingly being produced in illicit laboratories in Britain rather than imported from Holland, the traditional source of supply for the British market. Availability was so widespread that the British laboratories were responding to demand for better quality pills with a more consistent strength.

Mr Craske criticised plans in the new Home Office guide to step up searches for drugs at the doors to nightclubs. He said clubbers would be forced to "double drop" pills before arriving at clubs, increasing the risks to their health.

But Harry Shapiro of the drugs charity Drugscope said there had been a spate of ecstasy-related deaths recently and that younger users needed to be aware of the dangers.