Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 89
Call for Home Office to require warnings and expedite spiking testing review
Recommendation
The Home Office should require commercially available drug-testing products to carry warnings about their limitations; expedite its planned scientific review of the relative merits of the various spiking testing pilots being run by the police, universities and hospitals and report back to the Committee in three months’ time; and provide support to allow wider adoption of the best schemes across the country once the review is completed.
Government Response Summary
The government states there is no single effective test kit and urges victims to contact police for forensic analysis. It does not commit to requiring warnings on commercial products, expediting the review to a 3-month deadline, or supporting wider adoption after the review.
Paragraph Reference:
89
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
The Government recognises the use of spiking test kits in various parts of the country, but we remain clear that there is no single test kit that reports to cover the number of drugs that have been identified as potential candidates for spiking. We therefore feel that an evaluation of pilots which only utilise non-lab-based test kits could provide potential victims with a false sense of security given the lack of any industry certification or validation to account for the efficacy of such test kits. We therefore urge anyone who suspect that they or someone around them have been spiked to contact the police in order to collect a sample for forensic analysis through an accredited testing capability, such as that established by law enforcement and forensic provider Eurofins. To date, this remains the only method which will provide certainty in sample analysis. We are currently aware of efforts within law enforcement to consider how local toxicology services can assist our response to spiking incidents. The results from this will form part of the statutory review of spiking. We are also aware of a limited evaluation being carried out over summer on a urine test kit utilised in some police forces. The project is likely to assess the kit’s efficacy in detecting a number of substances which have been identified as part of the Eurofins rapid testing capability.