Pubdate: Sat, 16 Jul 2005
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: David Rennie, Daily Telegraph (UK)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COCAINE TRACES FOUND AT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Conclusive Evidence Of Drug Use

BRUSSELS - A television station has found traces of cocaine in 41 of
46 washrooms tested at the European parliament in Brussels.

Researchers for the German Sat-1 channel were sent to the palatial
glass and steel complex to take swab samples. They apparently found
conclusive evidence of drug use.

Parliamentary officials said they were not aware of any problem of
cocaine abuse among staff.

The Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg,
which analysed the swab samples, found the amounts were sufficiently
large that they could not have been carried in unwittingly by people
who had picked up minute traces on their clothing, for example. They
had to have been taken in by officials, staff or visitors, experts
said.

Professor Fritz Sorgel, of the laboratory, told Spiegel Online, a
German Internet news site, that tests on almost any public building
would reveal cocaine traces. "Therefore I am not at all surprised that
cocaine has been found in the European parliament,'' he said.

In 2000, the channel investigated 28 washrooms at the new German
parliament buildings in Berlin and found traces of cocaine in 22.

The claims of drug abuse at the European parliament complex was
greeted with derision by British MP Nigel Farage. "Given the
stultifying boredom of committee work in Brussels, it is hardly
surprising," he said. "But it could explain the decisions they come up
with.''
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin