Police unleashed drug sniffing dogs at Prahran’s Chapel Street and Commercial Road in Melbourne, Australia this weekend. Lucky Coq and Circus among other venues, were targeted by “Operation Safenight,” which involved dozens of police officers patrolling the streets for people possessing drugs. Twenty people were arrested as a result of the operation that police implemented in the city. Among these arrests, cannabis, amphetamine, cocaine, ketamine and MDMA were found to be in possession of those under question.
Although there were no searches made inside the club, the door staff at Pawn & Co were inspected, according to newspaper sources. Drug sniffing dogs have a familiar presence at train stations as well as on the streets of Sydney. They are also known to be around at music festivals in the state of Victoria. However, dogs aren’t normally used in the way to target clubbers the way they were used over the weekend.
The drug dogs were not however entirely unwarranted. In January, there was a batch of poisonous MDMA which led to three deaths and a bout of hospitalizations. The crackdown was in response to the drug-related illnesses and deaths, and was not purely a political response. What caused the most uproar was that in February police force in Victoria withheld an internal memo marked “not for public release.”
The document was leaked and described the appearance and chemical make up of the batch of toxic MDMA. Many said that the information should have been made public to decrease the risk of more people consuming the dangerous batch, and that the new operation fails to target the source of the problem. Although the city is making attempts to control the drug usage in Melbourne, there is no guarantee that the city will remain safe. Moreover, the operation will run until August.
H/T: Mixmag
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