Scottish police target clubbers with surprise drug tests
Police have been accused of eroding civil liberties
Scottish police have been accused of infringing on civil liberties after targeting clubbers with surprise drug tests in the queue for Club Tropicana in Aberdeen last weekend.
Officers tested 100 people on Friday and Saturday night with a drug detection hand swab and a sniffer dog.
A 'guilty until proven innocent' approach was enforced, with those who refused to co-operate with the test being barred from entering the club. Anyone testing positive faced questioning, searching and arrest.
The police failed to record a single positive result across the weekend.
Club Tropicana boss Tony Cochrane says: "I support an anti-drug policy but I feel this latest action by Police Scotland is a step too far in regards to civil liberties."
"We appreciate the work the police do but they're achieving nothing with this policy. People going for a night out are being made to feel like potential criminals. They're wasting manpower and resources on making law-abiding citizens feel like suspects."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie further criticised the police practice, stating: "carrying out such tests without a suspicion of a crime is a heavy handed and indiscriminate tactic by the police."
Scottish stop-and-search figures are the highest in the UK at 600,000 a year, with young people making up the majority of targets.
[Via: The Mirror]