Our History

How The Loop began

Professor Fiona Measham started an annual programme of research on festival drug use and associated topics - the English Festival Study - at summer music festivals in 2010. In the course of the fieldwork, Fiona discussed comparative approaches to festival harm reduction across Europe with event management, public health and police representatives. The local stakeholders were interested to hear about drug checking at European events and open to piloting rapid testing at their events.

Concurrently, Fiona shadowed Home Office Forensic Early Warning System (FEWS) chemists, commercial chemists and associated police forces testing drugs onsite at festivals primarily for evidential and intelligence purposes. The idea of utilising FTIR equipment for rapid onsite testing for harm reduction purposes was formed.

The Loop was set up with a group of friends with a strong commitment to harm reduction and working in associated fields of drug treatment, chemistry, the music and events industries. Three of the founding team continue to volunteer in The Loop senior team ten years later.

The Loop starts non public testing

Home Office FEWS chemists brought their FTIR equipment to partner with The Loop for the UK’s first event-based onsite harm reduction drug testing service, at The Warehouse Project in Manchester in 2013. Following on from shadowing the Home Office FEWS chemists at the Warehouse Project, The Loop invested in our own FTIR and started conducting onsite harm reduction drug testing at Parklife and Kendal Calling summer music festivals in 2014.

In recognition of the application of FTIR for onsite harm reduction services, The Loop won its first award in 2014, from UK Festival Awards, for ‘Best Use of New Technology’.

The Loop’s model of non public testing involves rapid analysis of substances of concern obtained from onsite medical and welfare services; surrendered to amnesty bins; ground finds; and seizures and confiscations in a pop-up onsite laboratory. Results are disseminated to emergency services, support staff and other stakeholders onsite and offsite and, where appropriate, to the wider public via media, social media and early warning systems. 

Strategically the move from non public onsite testing to public onsite testing in the UK followed a stepping stone approach, allowing The Loop to build up productive partnerships directly with event industry, policing and public health stakeholders over the course of several years. Drug checking provides the same rapid onsite drug testing service but simply adds the public to the process. It also has the additional benefit of monitoring changing trends in illicit drug markets through direct engagement with people who have bought drugs, to assess the disparity between purchase intent and actual contents.

Drug Checking for The Public

In 2016 The Loop introduced the UK’s first event-based drug checking services (at Secret Garden Party and Kendal Calling festivals) and in 2018 The Loop introduced the UK’s first community-based drug checking services (in Bristol and Durham) with the full support of local police. In 2024, The Loop opened and operated the UK’s first Home Office licenced, regular city centre drug checking service in Bristol.

This model involves testing substances of concern submitted by members of the public who then return and receive a healthcare consultation with a health professional which is individually tailored to their needs and the test result. This facilitates a confidential, non-judgemental dialogue between staff and service users, in order to communicate relative risk regarding high strength substances, adulterants, polydrug use, dehydration and other topics, with the aim of reducing drug-related harm. As with non public testing, intelligence gained from The Loop’s drug checking services feeds into local stakeholder networks, early warning systems and wider drug using communities. 

No substances are returned to service users after testing. No substances are ever deemed ‘safe’ to use - the service communicates relative risk and all service users are told that the safest choice is not to take drugs at all. All remnants of testing are handed to the police for onward safe destruction upon completion of analyses.