Police and campaign group differ over drug message

GDSC founder Lucia Pagliarone said they were very concerned about the recent reports about two teenage girls ending up in hospital after it was suspected they had taken MDMA.

A 19-year-old girl was treated in hospital on Sunday and subsequently released.

However a 16-year-old girl remains in intensive care in a critical condition.

Detective Inspector Lisa Sylvester said they had arrested seven people and six had since been released on bail. No one has been charged. Family liaison officers are working with the teenager’s family during the investigation, which is ongoing.

Detective Inspector Sylvester said the message from Guernsey Police was not to take illegal drugs.

But Ms Pagliarone said the ‘just say no’ message was dated and clearly did not work.

Instead, the GDSC has been buying tests, which check the purity of drugs. A small piece of the drug is put in the test, which then changes colour based on the purity. The campaign has invested in tests for a number of different drugs, including cocaine, ketamine and MDMA, and Ms Pagliarone said it was important that if people were taking drugs, they should do so as safely as possible.

‘They message us and we then give them the location of where the tupperware [containing the test] is,’ she said.

‘We are not here to report people to Guernsey Police. We believe in harm reduction. Just say no does not work.’

She said the campaign tests, which she funds herself, had been on offer for two or three years, but people were not necessarily aware they are on offer. The recent MDMA problem has highlighted the service.

‘We’ve had quite a lot collected over the weekend,’ she said.

‘We’ve probably had about 10. We want people to be safe.’

She said the campaign would like to work with the States lab, so drugs could be tested quickly and issues such as the recent cases flagged up to authorities more quickly.