http://icberkshire.icnetwork.co.uk/chronicle/headlines/tm_headline=new-police-weapon-to-banish-drugs-from-nightspots%26method=full%26objectid=18614959%26siteid=50102-name_page.html
New police weapon to banish drugs from nightspots
Feb 13 2007
By Eric Tlozek
POLICE are stepping up their zero tolerance drugs campaign across Reading’s nightlife scene by putting revellers and club workers under a high-tech microscope.
A super scanner – the £30,000 GE Itemiser which arrives at Reading police station in six weeks’ time – is able to pick up traces of different drugs on clothes,shoes and bags.
The machine,commonly used at airport security points to test for explosives, could be set up outside specific pubs and clubs or taken inside to check out staff.
The portable unit, weighing just 12 kilograms (26lbs), analyses swabs taken by rubbing people’s clothing and possessions with a special ‘wand’.
It takes just seven seconds – less than a normal security check – to determine whether narcotics are present.
It also detects a range of eight different kinds of drugs and in what concentration they are present – differentiating between a hardened user and someone who comes into accidental contact with a drug trace.
Reading town centre Inspector Andy Bagnall said the machine would be used in many different situations.
He said: “It’s a good bit of kit. I intend to use it in every situation it can be used in.”
He said the machine would be particularly effective for the managers of pubs and clubs to ensure their staff are not involved with drugs.
Insp Bagnall added: “It is a fact of life in the night-time economy and we will be making sure that licensees’ policies to control it are working. It’s about being proactive in this area and I think it will help us greatly.”
