Yle News says samples from the legislature’s toilets following early Christmas parties have tested positive for cocaine and MDMA
Finland’s Yle News has reported that it has found traces of multiple controlled substances in the country’s parliament, in the wake of Christmas celebrations there.
In an article on Monday, the media outlet revealed that in November its reporters had collected samples in six toilet cubicles, both men’s and women’s, while parliamentary groups were holding parties. Subsequent laboratory testing identified traces of amphetamine, MDMA and cocaine in half the stalls.
Kalle Lagerblom, chief operating officer at Measurlabs testing facility, told Yle that the “residues are very small, but there are clearly [drug] residues.”
However, the report points out that the samples do not necessarily indicate that drugs were consumed in the parliamentary cubicles. Yle quoted Lagerblom as explaining that a person who used the facilities might have previously come into contact with drugs, whether intentionally or unintentionally. “In principle, it is enough for a person to have been on a bus and sat on a seat contaminated with drugs, with some of the substance ending up stuck on their clothes,” the expert told reporters.
According to the article, aside from lawmakers, the Christmas parties were also attended by parliamentary employees, ministerial assistants and journalists.
When asked for comment, Speaker of Parliament Jussi Halla-aho told the media outlet that “it is of course sad and pathetic that there are signs in Parliament that people who may work here are using drugs.”
Antti Pelttari, Secretary General of the Finnish Parliament, similarly described the findings as an “unfortunate surprise.”
Halla-aho acknowledged, however, that there was not much the legislature could do to address the issue, as putting a “sniffer dog at the door of Parliament to check everyone who enters” would likely fail to garner sufficient support.
Last January, daily tabloid Aftonbladet in neighboring Sweden conducted a similar experiment in that country’s parliament, testing samples from eight parties’ offices. According to the newspaper, traces of cocaine were found in half the samples checked.
Back in August 2022, former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin was compelled to take a drug test after several videos of a private party she had taken part in surfaced. Some observers claimed they had heard some of the revelers in the footage describe themselves as a “flour gang” – ‘flour’ being a Finnish slang term for cocaine.
The test results came back negative, with Marin insisting that never in her life had she used controlled substances.
