Posted By David Mains My organisation has installed ultra violet lights in some of our public toilets in order to foil drug misuse. This decision was taken as a result of risk assessing the problems that we were experiencing and has been successful in dealing with the drug and sharps issues. However, concerns are now being raised that people who are visually impaired do not have adequate light. In addition to this some staff claim that when leaving the toilet area and coming back into "normal" lighting conditions they experience temporary vision problems and this may lead to trip, fall, collision incidents occuring. Has anyone else exprienced this or come up with a better way of detering drug use in the toilets?

Posted By Martyn Hendrie David, Sorry, I can't help with your question but I have seen this lighting in some supremarkets and wondered how it deters drugs misuse. Can you explain please?

Posted By Richard Mathews We too have problems with drug abuse in toilets. We have not used UV lighting because it can cause problems for legitimate, partially sighted, users and it is only effective in the short term. Our local drug users have already learned the technique of marking the vein with a biro before going in to the toilet, so organisations that have installed the UV lights have got the problem back. Regular patrols, cleaning checks and vigilance in monitoring known drug users when they come on your site are the answer to reducing the problem. Richard