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