Common lore pegs 2016 as a societal cataclysm, but my Brexit summer was beautiful.<\/p>\n
I followed the European Championships across France, sleeping on TGVs, meeting friends and sunrises in Paris, Marseille, St Etienne, Nice, filing copy from broiling Internet cafes that smelled of teeth, Vogue smoke on my skin. As the trip wound down, I received clandestine messages from Secret Garden Party about something important happening at that year\u2019s festival. Eventually, we spoke on the phone and the source of the secrecy became clear: a charity called The Loop would be checking festivalgoers\u2019 drugs, giving them the results, all with the approval of authorities.<\/p>\n
In the decade since, the UK\u2019s\u00a0drug deaths<\/a>\u00a0have climbed to record levels, year-on-year. But The Loop now has four regular Home Office-approved drug checking services (DCS) in England, with at least six expected by the year\u2019s end. Scotland should have three of its own before the hootenanny, while Wales has one.<\/p>\n Reaching the point where drug checking moves in from the fringes has been slower than many hoped, but that weekend on a febrile Cambridgeshire hill was the starting gun. We spoke to central characters from that weekend\u2019s cast for their memories, what could have gone wrong, and its ongoing legacy for UK drug culture and harm reduction.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember everyone being really boiling in that tent,\u201d laughs Dr Henry Fisher, an Oxford-graduated chemistry PhD who volunteered for The Loop<\/a>\u00a0and now designs psychedelic trials with Clerkenwell Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Loop\u2019s canvas was just roughly 10m in diameter, but this arbitrary patch of turf became the UK\u2019s first<\/a>\u00a0de facto decriminalised space for drug possession.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were almost having to pinch ourselves that this was happening,\u201d Henry says. The novelty was also not lost on festival attendees. \u201cPeople couldn\u2019t believe the service was being offered. We had to reassure everyone that the police weren\u2019t going to jump on them. But word got out that it was genuine, not a trap, then gradually interest grew,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Punters took a small scoop of a powder or chunk of a pill, handed it over to a volunteer, from where it was subject to three types of forensic analysis. They then received feedback on its contents, alongside a general consultation involving harm reduction smarts.<\/p>\n The Loop knew that brevity was key in the sensory merry-go-round of the Great British carnival \u2013 particularly Secret Garden Party, which that year had a \u2018Gardener\u2019s Guide To The Galaxy\u201d theme.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hadn\u2019t quite worked out how the customer experience would work but everything needed to be as smooth as possible.\u201d In future years the lab would be in a separate tent or portacabin but the team \u2013 comprising volunteer chemists and health professionals \u2013 were all together, analog, passing information back and forth, sometimes writing results on pen and paper rather than a streamlined online database that would come.<\/p>\n Whilst this weekend was The Loop\u2019s first front-of-house drug testing event, they had been doing back-of-house (testing seized substances, offering welfare services and disseminating drug-related information to the public where necessary) since 2013. But its founder, Professor Fiona Measham, had been researching harm reduction and drugs through the lens of rave culture and British leisure time since the 1990s. It was a long road to Secret Garden Party, and for no party was it linear.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first asked the Silver Commander about drug checking, it was a flat shutdown,\u201d says Freddie Fellowes, Head Gardener of Secret Garden Party, which had its first event in 2004 and ended in 2022, when they ceremoniously cindered the festival\u2019s main stage.<\/p>\n A Silver Commander [in this case Laura Hunt] is a senior police officer who works with festivals on strategy, logistics and security. Freddie says that the next time they spoke about drug checking, Laura\u2019s mood had changed, the words etched on his memory.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said that the primary directive for the police force is the persecution of criminality. The secondary is protection of the vulnerable,\u201d Freddie recalls. Hunt took the view that once punters were through the gates, the objective of protecting the vulnerable takes precedent. \u201cI\u2019d never heard that line from the police before. It was absolutely enlightening and a massive credit to her.\u201d<\/p>\n Freddie recalls that support from within the festival community was eventually \u201coverwhelming\u201d but that he found backing hard to find closer to home, citing a budget meeting where the festival\u2019s general manager said that the not-insignificant money slated for The Loop was untouchable \u2018because Freddie wants it to happen.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI stopped the meeting and said that this wasn\u2019t some fantasy project. Not only will it save lives but, if you want to be a bread head about it, it will reduce our blue lights [ambulance] cases. That will reduce all sorts of costs and friction we have as a commercial entity. So there was a money orientated argument for it too.\u201d<\/p>\n His determination was perhaps aided by Secret Garden Party\u2019s notoriety for a Sisyphus-inspired strain of British hedonism \u2013 which anyone that\u2019s been in their 24-hour bar at 8 am will attest to. (A friend of mine memorably said that bar, that year, with everyone in their intergalactic outfits, the sun long come up, was like being in some fantastical purgatory.)<\/p>\n So, did Freddie ever worry about getting the call a festival owner dreads most?<\/p>\n \u201cOf course. It [someone dying] was one of the things you never, ever, want to happen on your watch \u2013 whether it\u2019s down to something you have or haven\u2019t done,\u201d he says, stating with pride that he never had to take such a call. \u201cIt [The Loop] was really important to me because it was about looking after each other, and doing all of this in a way that was sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n To that point, a common theme amongst interviewees was how the whole project, years in the making, would have been forever dashed if there\u2019d been a tragedy that year \u2013 of all years. \u201cThere was definitely a moment of thinking, \u2018It would be awful if the thing we\u2019ve all trained for, disaster prepped for, occurred this year because it will look like it happened because we\u2019re drug testing,\u201d Freddie says. \u201cAnd it didn\u2019t matter how we dealt with it. We\u2019d have that hanging around our necks.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately, that concern was unmet.<\/p>\n The results from that first pilot were published in\u00a02018<\/a>. Amongst cases of pills containing concrete, ketamine sold as cocaine and the grim cathinone n-ethylpentylone moonlighting as MDMA, were some solid insights into how drug checking affects behaviours, even in the festival scrum.<\/p>\n Around 20% of drugs tested were not what the buyer thought. Around two-thirds of people who had been mis-sold drugs handed over further substances for disposal. In a damning indictment of the festival plug, drugs purchased onsite were more than twice as likely to have been mis-sold as those acquired offsite \u2013with the users buying them on average two years younger.<\/p>\n 2016 was a year of record drug-related and festival drug-related deaths across England and Wales. Despite this, Secret Garden Party saw one hospital admission for drugs in that year \u2013 down from 19 the previous year. Freddie\u2019s aspiration came to pass.<\/p>\n The media largely lapped it up, thanks, in part, to some cloak-and-dagger PR led by Fiona which kept this seismic story under wraps for as long as possible. The Guardian\u00a0<\/em>didn\u2019t run it until Sunday afternoon, and I was the only reporter onsite (for VICE<\/em>). Fiona herself only gave an interview to Radio 4 \u2018s Today show on Monday morning.<\/p>\n This clandestine approach was partly down to not wanting the service to become overwhelmed, plus a healthy scepticism about whether the service would actually go ahead with Fiona experiencing a number of false starts down the years \u2013 getting tantalisingly close before one of the stakeholders wobbled and the pilot pulled.<\/p>\n But this time no-one blinked. It wasn\u2019t just the usual suspects that approved.<\/p>\n \u201cThere wasn\u2019t the moral outrage response and the reaction \u2013 even amongst titles like\u00a0Daily Mail<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Telegraph\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 was really positive,\u201d says\u00a0Steve Rolles<\/a>, Senior Policy Analyst of\u00a0Transform<\/a>, a charity consumed with the tricky task of ending the drug war, and one of The Loop\u2019s most vocal supporters, who was onsite that weekend. \u201cAdvocacy work can feel like shouting into the void so it was an emotional moment. Huge credit to Fiona,\u201d Steve says, pointing to her framing The Loop\u2019s work as an academic, public health exercise. \u201cThat shifted it from being indulgent and hedonistic or pro-drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n Steve suggests that festivals are a fecund breeding ground for this kind of pilot as music, festival and drug cultures are so entangled. \u201cArguments that this testing facilitated drug use didn\u2019t stack up.\u201d<\/p>\n He also posits that \u201cfestivals are quite often white, privileged spaces,\u201d with journalists covering this story possibly having family members at the festival \u2013 or attending themselves. \u201cSo I think there\u2019s an understanding of that particular culture, as opposed to stigmatising and well-trodden media stereotypes like spice \u2018zombies\u2019 or shoplifting \u2018junkies\u2019.<\/p>\n While this criticism has been\u00a0voiced<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 with Fiona herself acknowledging festivals as a \u201cstepping stone\u201d to drug checking for-all \u2013 Steve says, \u201cThe power of pragmatic advocacy is growing and I think that resistance to it is eroding fast. It rings hollow now with drug deaths going up and up.\u201d<\/p>\n There were subsequent positive years of festival drug checking at festivals like Bestival, Boom Town and Kendal Calling \u2013 the latter of whom also worked with Fiona on that original 2016 pilot and only missed on being the \u201cfirst\u201d by virtue of coming the weekend after Secret Garden Party.<\/p>\n 2018 saw\u00a08,000<\/a> people get their drugs tested, though there was one setback when Festival Republic Managing Director Melvin Benn flip-flopped<\/a>\u00a0on a vow to have The Loop at Reading and Leeds. 2019 saw Boomtown\u2019s service cancelled days before due to \u201congoing legal complexities\u201d and, from then, thanks to a combination of increased Home Office intervention and the Covid-19 epidemic, The Loop were no longer able to carry out public drug checking.<\/p>\n Yet drug deaths continued rising to record levels. Nevertheless, it was only in 2023 that the Home Office finally approved a license. A monthly Bristol service started the following January, though licensing stipulations ensured it was aimed more towards dependent drug users than ravers, weekend kitchen dwellers or festival goers.<\/p>\n This buffalo-through-treacle progress can seem maddening for those who see drug checking as no more egregious than a trip to the pharmacy. The Netherlands has been doing it for decades. Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Portugal have long-established drug checking services, while drug consumption rooms have been operating across parts of Europe, Canada and Australia for years, stopping overdoses and connecting users with healthcare.<\/p>\n Is there something particular to Britain that makes it so averse to seemingly humane reforms with the potential to save lives?<\/p>\n The answer is byzantine. But Steve posits that, \u201cWe have a peculiar political culture \u2013 perhaps it harks back to some Victorian puritanism or colonial centralisation of power. Maybe the fact we\u2019re an island. We\u2019re divorced geographically and linguistically, we have a degree of separation from European culture and social policy debates. I think there is something unique about the confluence of puritanical traditionalism and conservatism and empire nostalgia. It spawned a gutlessness in social policy reform.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps it\u2019s worth acknowledging here that, after a decade of reporting The Loop\u2019s work, I can\u2019t pretend to be an impartial observer.<\/p>\n Writing that\u00a0feature<\/a> at Secret Garden Party \u2013 having taken MDMA through the gates inside some Boots cucumber moisturiser to test the service \u2013 altered my career\u2019s trajectory. I\u2019d never really found my niche until then: my \u2018thing\u2019, a wagon to hitch myself to. Later that year I won Festival Journalist Of The Year, at the same awards The Loop and Secret Garden Party won a Festival Innovation Award. I stopped having to pitch.<\/p>\n The Loop has \u2013 and will \u2013 help thousands of people in way more profound ways than it helped me, but I\u2019m still grateful I got invited to the show. And while my part began with a phone call in Nice, for Fiona it\u2019s been years in production \u2013 an exercise in slow diplomacy, in which she is now assisted by The Loop\u2019s CEO Katy Porter, not to mention the hundreds of volunteers who have given up their evenings, weekends and annual leave for the cause.<\/p>\n \u201cThat weekend felt like the beginning of a new era, that anything was possible,\u201d Fiona says, in one of many emails we\u2019ve shared over the last couple of months. \u201cIt felt like the first step in the right direction towards a more just, rational, compassionate and evidence-based drug policy.\u201d<\/p>\n The Loop project actually traces<\/a>\u00a0back to 2010 when Fiona started an annual programme of research on festival drug use and behaviours called the\u00a0English Festival Study<\/em>. So, 16-odd years and infinitesimal conversations with stakeholders and journalists later, she\u2019ll admit that, \u201cOnce the novelty wore off, it was hard work and, at times, quite a lonely place with my head above the parapet, trying to raise awareness and build public support for drug checking through the media and social media \u2013 as well as negotiating with stakeholders for 10 years solidly.\u201d<\/p>\n Until the Home Office finally granted a formal license for drug checking, they\u2019d been working with like-minded local players and forward-thinkers (such as Silver Commander Laura Hunt). The wheels of drug reform tend to turn first at a local level, alongside the gathering of data and tireless advocacy.<\/p>\n \u201cProgress can come in stages and significant change probably rarely happens all at once \u2014 reform is a more realistic goal than revolution,\u201d says Fiona.<\/p>\n That progress is now becoming stark. Most of the UK will have access to a DCS in 2026, with three due to open in Scotland by the end of the year. These are backed by the Scottish Government and won\u2019t be run by The Loop, though Fiona has been sitting on advisory committees, nudging things along. Newport, Gwent has a DCS run by the alcohol and drug service Kaleidoscope. Bristol\u2019s is still active. Then there\u2019s bi-monthly services in Hackney and Camden, with Ealing due to open shortly.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with London is that all the boroughs will now be wanting one \u2013 but that isn\u2019t efficient. At some point, public health authorities will need to get together and work out a format for London-wide services \u2013 maybe one in the north, south, east and west \u2013 opening for longer hours and more days.\u201d<\/p>\n 2016 might have been an\u00a0annus horribilis\u00a0<\/em>for many: Brexit, Trump, the death of David Bowie and Prince, \u201call our heroes fading\u201d like that Lorde song<\/a>. But a slow revolution began in a field in Cambridgeshire.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the beginning of a journey \u2013 but also the end of a different sort of advocacy journey,\u201d says Steve Rolles. \u201cWhat The Loop did in 2016 was break through the glass ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Chemist<\/h2>\n
![\"drug](\"https:\/\/www.leafie.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/henry-the-loop-sgp-800x600.webp\")
Henry (white glasses) in action in The Loop\u2019s lab from 2017. Photo credit: Steve Rolles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\nThe Head Gardener<\/h2>\n
![\"freddie](\"https:\/\/www.leafie.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/freddie-sgp.webp\")
Freddie. (Note The Loop t-shirt)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\nThe Advocate<\/h2>\n
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<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
(For anyone who\u2019s met Steve, \u201cvocal\u201d is an apt general descriptor.)<\/p>\n![\"media](\"https:\/\/www.leafie.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a9aa94c0-a099-46d1-a4e1-74efaef06a6a_1200x750-800x500.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"steve](\"https:\/\/www.leafie.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/steve-rolles-the-loop-800x481.webp\")
Steve, in the vest. Photo credit: Steve Rolles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\nThe Slow Revolutionary<\/h2>\n
![\"fiona](\"https:\/\/www.leafie.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fiona-the-loop-800x799.webp\")
Fiona in the middle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.leafie.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/the-loop-2016-sgp.webp\")
The Loop\u2019s 2016 tent. Photo credit: Steve Rolles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n