Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to join in this debate about the Government’s Psychoactive Substances Bill because the issue is one about which we should all be concerned. There is evidence from across Europe that there is a steady increase in such newly created drugs, with some 450 currently being monitored there. Statistics from the UK detect a slow rise, from 41 such substances in 2010 to 49 in 2011, 74 in 2012 and 81 in 2013. However, the very Home Office review setting out those statistics also said that substances so identified were not in widespread or even limited use.

There have been deaths associated with such substances. We have heard the statistics—one of the problems of speaking late in a debate is that your Lordships will already have heard them. However, the numbers are going up: from 29 in 2011 to 52 in 2012 and 60 in 2013. Every death is to be regretted but those figures are, as that same review commented, relatively low compared to overall deaths from drug misuse generally, which amount to nearly 2,000. Of course, the number of alcohol-related deaths is much higher—some 20,000 a year, which we regularly accept—but alcohol is the one psychoactive substance specifically excluded from the Bill.

I welcome the chance to debate the Bill because I believe that its proposed blanket ban, with special exceptions, is contrary to the way we do law in this country. British citizens expect to be free to behave and do as they wish and to consume what they choose unless those things are expressly forbidden one by one. Blanket bans are not the way we go about life in this society. I believe this blanket ban will have numerous unintended consequences that will not be to the benefit of those it seeks to protect.

There is no doubt that we face a growing increase in the number and use of drugs throughout national life. Many are beneficial: medical discoveries are hailed with delight as they promise treatments and even cures for ailments that have long devastated lives. The world of sport is dominated by the use of drugs to enhance performance. The issue for each sport is to determine which drugs, and in what combinations, are allowed and which are specifically banned. At every turn the chemists are rushing to be ahead of the ban, to avoid exclusion and to bring human sporting performance to ever higher peaks.

When it comes to leisure use, there is an evolving pattern of use that, in some cases, becomes acceptable. The baby boomers’ liking for cannabis has ceased to be the “shock, horror” habit it once was considered to be. Now, legal highs are the latest to pose problems for how we protect the vulnerable and limit harm. We have to face the fact that drugs in all forms will be an increasingly present element in contemporary society. That is why I believe we need a more nuanced and subtle approach to how we regulate them and how we advise and educate citizens to live with them.

I have been reporting on issues of drug use for BBC television since the 1990s. When I hear that the Local Government Association has called for an outright ban on legal highs, I recall how often I have heard drug specialists, academics, lawyers and police officers tell me that prohibition does not bring about the result society would like. Prohibition of alcohol in 1920s America spawned a vast network of speakeasies and Mafia criminals. Prohibition of drugs has not brought the drug trade to an end; it continues to be one of the world’s most established criminal enterprises.

I understand that local authorities are hoping that the Bill, once passed, will enable the closure of head shops, which, among their other goods, sell what are called legal highs—out in the open. This is exactly where they need to be: where they can be identified and monitored rather than being driven underground, where they will fuel another criminal network.

What resources in money and manpower will be made available to tackle the criminal activities that will result from a blanket ban? All psychoactive substances need regulation, which is why we have strict rules governing the distribution and availability of alcohol. In a recent BBC “Panorama” programme, I reported on the major crisis of alcohol-related illnesses among the old. When I subsequently asked, in this House, whether the Government would consider a minimum pricing policy in England to limit the damage that those who would so self-harm can do, the Government refused. Such a policy operates in Scotland, which has seen a fall in alcohol-related deaths. I would like the Government to explain the paradox of being so ready to ban substances sampled by so few, while refusing modest moves against other acknowledged dangerous drugs enjoyed by so many.

In seeking to regulate psychoactive substances, examples are often given—as we have heard several times—of what happened in Ireland and is happening in Poland. I have the same statistics and will not repeat them, but it would be worth the Minister examining in some detail exactly what is going on in Ireland and Poland, and then giving us the up-to-date information.

I look forward to Committee, where we can explore in more detail the ways to regulate NPS and inform and educate all our citizens about the risks that they might consider taking. We have a fine example of a drug control that we might follow. The campaign to reduce smoking is an ongoing success. Steadily and thoroughly, generations have now grown up knowing the risks that smoking brings and seeing on packages and in retail shop notices a constant reminder of the risks they must live with. I am eager for the Government to pursue a policy that brings forward such an informed awareness in the young about the continuing temptation of NPS.