London Council to Introduce Ecstasy Testing in Clubs-

Camden Council leader Jane Roberts called for ecstasy to be decriminalised this week and confirmed that the North London authority would "consider very carefully" allowing ecstasy testing in clubs.

"The targeting of intervention should be on heroin and crack cocaine," said Councillor Roberts (speaking to Radio 1). "We've got numbers of clubs where ecstasy is taken and used. It doesn't cause mass community disorder, certainly not."

Councillor Roberts is the latest mainstream character to embrace ecstasy decriminalisation and followed a similar call from the Independent newspaper to distance ecstasy from other class A drugs.

"In the case of ecstasy, now classified as a class A drug along with heroin and LSD, all the statistics suggest that it is much less damaging than heroin," the newspaper said.

"There is little evidence of craving, withdrawal or other addictive behaviour associated with this particular drug; it is, according to authoritative studies, several thousand times less dangerous than heroin; and it is, frankly, significantly less dangerous than alcohol, the biggest killer in the country. Ecstasy should rapidly be transferred to class B."
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