Exclusive by Marios Papaloizou
Drugs will never disappear from dance culture according to the Warehouse Project boss who believes that politicians do not have the ‘balls’ relax current laws on illegal substances.
In an exclusive interview with MM the Warehouse Project’s director, Sacha Lord-Marchionne revealed that clubbers have access to a ‘cocktail menu’ of substances and are unaware of the dangers they face.
The club boss also slammed current politicians for being ‘out of touch’ and said that the current legislation on drugs needs to be looked at.
“Drugs are never going to disappear from dance culture. Ever. It’s not going to happen. It doesn’t matter what you do it’s never going to happen,” he said.
“Obviously I’ve got to obey with legislation but if I was a politician and I wasn’t interested in winning or losing votes I think certainly the legislation needs looking at.
“No one has got the balls to say it. Not legalising but a more relaxed approach.”
Lord-Marchionne claimed all of the major political parties are too frightened to commit to getting behind any changes in drug legislation.
“They’re scared when it comes down to it. Neither the Conservatives nor labour will ever say we need to relax legislation not in my lifetime not in your lifetime,” he said.
“They’ll just never do it because I think out of the majority of people who can vote would say: ‘it’s terrible you know we don’t want drugs we don’t want this we don’t want’. They don’t get it.”
Lord-Marchionne’s comments come in the wake of the tragic death of Nick Bonnie who took a bad batch of drugs at the Warehouse Project.
However, according to the club director, it is not enough to simply try and get people off drugs.
“Did you see Theresa may’s comments last week? The most ridiculous comments,” he said.
“She got cornered at the Tory conference regarding the tragedy and whether legislation should be looked at and her thoughts on the home office testing and her comment was ‘we should be trying to get people off drugs’ I just thought it’s such a staple comment.
“She is clearly so out of touch.”
Lord-Marchionne told MM that there is no way to stop people taking drugs and clubbers face unprecedented risks from drugs that have recently emerged.
“Even if you go back to the factory years and you ruled the roost with a metal rod and you cattle prod people on the way out who’ve taken the drugs it’s not going to work,” he said.
“I think the difference is, when I started off in the hacienda you went out and you had a choice – I’m not saying I took that choice – but you had the choice if you were going out you could drink, you could do ecstasy, you could do cocaine or you smoked some weed – it was pretty limited. Now it’s a cocktail menu.
“There’s hundreds of things out there, you can go to websites and a 14-year-old can log on and they deliver to your home address and no one has got a clue what’s in there because it’s produced on some backstreet sweatshop on the other side of the world.”
In light of these new-age drugs, Lord-Marchionne admitted that he would cast a keen eye over suggested changes to legislation and get behind any changes.
“I would certainly look very closely at what they were saying. Definitely,” he said.
However, while political change may not be afoot Lord-Marchionne revealed that the Home Office have developed an innovative scheme to help combat the perils of recreational drug use.
“They’ve come up with a scheme that is genius, absolutely genius and hopefully it will be announced in the next seven days,” he said, though emphasised that he was sworn to secrecy until then.
“I think it’s brilliant. I think it’s pioneering we’re going to throw our weight behind it, GMP are going to throw their weight behind it, the home office are going to throw their weight behind it and I think it’s something other countries are going to pick up on.”
Image courtesy of Shaun Murphy, with thanks
For more on this story and many others, follow Mancunian Matters on Twitter and Facebook.
