Queen’s Speech

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I applaud the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury on his excellent maiden speech. It is an honour to be able to welcome him to your Lordships’ House and on behalf of noble Lords to recognise his wide range of interests and areas of expertise: not only the environment but also the needs of disabled people, including deaf people—which he mentioned in his maiden speech—music, and areas of particular interest to me, namely ethics, psychotherapy and counselling. Many of us will be seeking his support in the months ahead.

On the subject of my contribution today, I welcome the opportunity presented by the Psychoactive Substances Bill to have a detailed debate over the coming weeks about how best to reduce the importation and use of high-risk psychoactive substances. To many, this seems a narrow, rather insignificant issue, but it touches on one of the four major global issues of the 21st century. These are terrorism and security; climate change; the destruction of our seas through pollution; and last but not least, international crime, including very substantial levels of drug-related crime and associated violence and corruption.

The UK has one of the toughest drug policies, yet one of the highest levels of high-risk drug use of any western European country. My perspective on the proposed Bill is informed by the inquiry into new psychoactive substances that we undertook for the all-party parliamentary group for drug policy reform. We considered evidence from more than 30 organisations, including ACPO, the ACMD and other government bodies, professional associations and very senior medical and scientific experts. The evidence showed that to reduce the use of NPS, any policy must take account of the interaction between the markets for traditional and new drugs. I have to say that I am not convinced that the proposed law yet does that.

One aspect of the Bill I strongly applaud is the apparent aim to limit the proposed ban to the import or supply of NPS, while avoiding criminalising the users of these drugs if they are not also an importer. Drug policies that avoid criminalising young people have tangible benefits to individuals, families and communities, and do not lead to increased levels of addiction. The challenge of responding to the growing use of psychoactive substances offers an opportunity for government to develop policy on the basis of scientific evidence about effective strategies for the first time for 50 years.

Last year, this House debated the European Commission’s regulation on new psychoactive substances. The Government persuaded Parliament to opt out of that regulation because of a strong belief in subsidiarity. I happen to agree that subsidiarity should be the default position, but drugs is one of four key areas where we really do need policy that reaches across national borders. I therefore hope that the proposed Bill can be brought as far as possible into line with the regulation.

What would that mean in practice? The regulation which has been approved by the European Parliament but not yet by the Council, introduces a policy of action proportionate to the level of social, health and safety risks of the drug. That is absolutely critical if the provision is to be taken seriously. Substances that pose severe risks will be submitted to permanent market restriction. The Commission document recognises the harms these substances can cause to the health and safety of individuals; we know they can cause death, injury and disease.

The risk of the proposed ban on “head shop” sales of psychoactive substances is that young people will turn to back-street dealers or the internet, both of which are even less responsible than “head shops”. It has been suggested to me that the Bill could therefore increase the risks to young people, unless we can mitigate those risks.

A blanket ban on new psychoactive substances could prove a serious impediment to UK university-based research into the physiological properties of such substances. Such research is needed before clinical trials can take place. We need to address this issue when we consider the Bill.

Psychoactive substances have other, legitimate uses. The Commission’s regulation specifically takes account of the fact that individual national measures such as those proposed by the Government disrupt trade in legitimate uses of these substances. We will have to look at that issue. Adjusting the Bill to bring it more into line with the regulation would ensure the free movement of psychoactive substances for commercial, industrial, scientific and medical purposes, while providing a graduated and proportionate set of restriction measures for substances posing risks. I wholeheartedly support such controls.

The key point is that a blanket ban will not achieve the Government’s objective. It will not bring about the reduction in the overall use of dangerous drugs that we all want to see. The government agencies that gave evidence to our inquiry made it clear that it is not possible to intercept more than a tiny fraction of the legal highs coming through in packages from China and India to people’s homes. The best hope is that if government policy were logical and sensible, young people might take it seriously. If reasonably harmless psychoactive substances were legal and the more risky ones—one might call them the more dangerous ones—were banned, young people would take note. They do not want to harm themselves but they do not know what they are doing, and I do not think that this Bill necessarily helps.

I look forward to working with the Minister, as I have done before, in a constructive way to generate a Bill which will create a safer world for our young people.