Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

The wording of my amendment may not be perfect, and I have since learned about the FPN approach, which may be a better way forward. However, the principle is sound and it is this: we should have a consistent approach to all psychoactive substances by decriminalising simple possession. Even if the Government do not feel that they can go that far, at least simple possession of drugs only as harmful as or less harmful than cannabis—a class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—should be decriminalised. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, we will return to the subject of decriminalising possession of all drugs a little later in relation to other amendments, and I will speak then. I applaud the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for this amendment. This is an incredibly important issue and I want to say a few words about Portugal.

The crucial issue that I think the Government have to consider is whether it is more important to reduce social use. For example, if an alcohol policy results in rather more people having a glass of wine or beer on a Saturday night, does that really matter? I do not think so. What really matters is addiction, and a policy that reduces addiction is, for me, a good policy.

As I understand it from all the research—of which there has been a lot—into the Portuguese decriminalisation of possession and use of all drugs, there has been a bit of an increase in social use in Portugal, but under the scheme fewer young people are addicted to any drug. As I understand it, the right-wing political parties were against decriminalisation when it was introduced, but Dr Goulão, the wonderful doctor who spearheaded this reform—he is terrific; I know him very well and he is splendid—is thrilled that all political parties in Portugal now support the policy. It is true that Portugal is going through terrible economic issues, so I am not sure exactly what is happening to the policy right now, but it has been proved that a policy of decriminalisation wins the support of all political parties once it is seen in action, and it is all about addiction.

My question to the House and to the Minister is: why are fewer young people in Portugal now addicted to all drugs, not just one? I believe that it is to do with the psychology of young people. They like to be cool. When I was at school I used to break the school rules. I thought it was a terrific thing to do, although I do not think that I broke the law. If all young people have to do is get a spliff to break the law, they think that that is cool. In Portugal it is not cool. Why is that? It is because if you are referred to a dissuasion commission, you see a psychiatrist, a social worker or a lawyer who determines whether you are addicted. You are then referred for treatment. That is not cool; it is a mental health treatment, and it is not cool to have a mental health problem.

I believe that Governments of all political persuasions should think about the psychology of young people when they think about drugs policy, because it will only be when we get inside the minds of young people that we might come up with a policy that makes sense and works.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, as someone from the highlands of Scotland, I like to be cool as well, but I suspect that it is a slightly different interpretation.

I was not quick enough on my feet to ask this of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, before he sat down. I readily acknowledge his great practical expertise in these matters and I acknowledge my own ignorance. Is there a definition, in statute or in case law, of how much is a “small amount” of drugs for personal use? One needs to know how much a person could get away with by claiming, “This is just for my personal use, guv”. Or is it rather like the cross-channel ferries, where people can come back with 10,000 cases of cigarettes and lots of booze and claim that they are a heavy drinker and smoker, and possibly get away with it?

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, quote favourably from the Portuguese experiment, and there are some debatable results there. I would also refer them to the trendiest, most socialist and liberal country in the EU—Sweden. Sweden has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and, admittedly, a big back-up self-harm programme behind it. Although one can quote Portugal favourably, one can also quote Sweden and its no-tolerance policy favourably. I hope that noble Lords have seen the reports from Sweden, as I have, and if I am wrong, I am happy to be reminded and amended later on.

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Moved by

[Baroness Meacher]

25: Schedule 1, page 34, line 7, leave out paragraph 2 and insert—
“2 All medicinal products prescribed by a doctor or sold by a licensed pharmacist.”

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 26 and 27. I am very grateful to Rudi Fortson QC for advising me about the issues I am seeking to resolve with these three amendments.

Amendment 25 seeks to adjust Schedule 1 in order to exempt:

“All medicinal products prescribed by a doctor or sold by a licensed pharmacist”.

In the absence of this amendment, some perfectly legitimate medications prescribed by a medical practitioner may be banned under this legislation. The point here is that the exemption for “investigational medicinal products” does not encompass the supply by a GP on a named-patient basis of a particular medication. The GP will not be acting in pursuance of a clinical trial and thus will not be covered by the exemption of substances used for investigational purposes.

In the Bill no exemption is made for medical practitioners who believe it to be in the patient’s best interests to supply a psychoactive substance that is unlicensed and which does not fall within Schedule 1. The amendment seeks to overcome this problem. I can give the House an example to clarify the point. Acetylcysteine is used on a named-patient basis for cystic fibrosis, pulmonary fibrosis and renal protection. These are not trivial matters; they are very serious and it is really important that doctors are able to prescribe these substances in the future despite the passage of the Bill, which we assume will go through in some form. I hope the Minister has had an opportunity to consider this issue and, if she would find it helpful to discuss it with some experts, I have proposed a few people who would be happy to attend a meeting.

A separate issue is covered by Amendment 26. I thank the Royal College of Psychiatrists, as well as Rudi Fortson QC, for its briefing on this amendment. Here the need is to ensure that research scientists using psychoactive substances in their work to develop new medicines or progress neuroscience research do not have their work hindered by this legislation. I am sure the Government do not intend to interfere with this important sphere of research but I hope they will ensure that the final wording of the Bill achieves fully the objectives of the amendment. The royal college welcomes the Bill’s current exemptions for investigational medicinal products as defined by the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. Moreover, as the ban on psychoactive substances set out in the Bill relates only to such substances that are consumed by humans, this means that research that does not involve human consumption of a psychoactive substance— that is, pre-clinical trials—would not be banned under the Bill.

However, there are some experiments involving humans that sit outside the 2004 regulations. Some biologicals and early-stage pharmacological tools—proteins or manipulated chemical compounds—would fall outside this definition as they cannot be classified as “investigational medicinal products”. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, this is hugely concerning as physiological experiments on humans, for example, or studies in human neuroscience looking at issues such as attention, consciousness and memory-use drugs and amino-acids—not medicines—would therefore be illegal under the Bill, unless exempted via this amendment.

The aim of the amendment is to ensure that all research, including work using humans consuming substances for research purposes—not for fun—but not captured by the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004, would remain legal and enable vital neuroscientific research to continue. Without this amendment, laboratory suppliers may be wary of supplying some requested compounds for neuroscience research because of their potential to have a psychoactive effect on humans. This could mean that vital new medicines may never get developed. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that she agrees that the term “investigational medicinal products”, as defined by the 2004 regulations, does not cover all research used to develop new medicines or progress neuroscience research, and therefore that this amendment really is needed to protect these crucial areas of research.

At this point, I want to mention the letter to the Home Secretary from the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Pharmacological Society, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal Society, the Wellcome Trust and the Society of Biology. They all expressed concern about this issue. The letter welcomes my amendment but makes the point that it “goes some way towards” protecting vital research. I obviously have not managed to go all the way in my amendment. I hope that the Ministers—the noble Baroness and the noble Lord—would agree to meet the key people to make sure that the wording in the Bill really is right at the end of the day.

My final point on this issue is that the problems could of course be resolved by regulations, as indicated in Clause 10. However, this seems far too important a matter to leave to regulations, and I think that all those scientists would be very concerned if it was not in the Bill. I also think I am right in saying that a similar issue was dealt with in the Bill that became the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Perhaps the noble Baroness can address that issue, because at least we would therefore have consistency. Even without that point, this matter needs to be dealt with in the Bill to make sure that our research base is not interfered with.

I turn very briefly to Amendment 27, which addresses the possibility that low non-psychoactive doses of potentially psychoactive substances could and should be exempted from the scope of the Bill. How can a Government justify criminalising someone for supplying to someone else a dose of a substance when that dose in itself is not psychoactive? Can the Minister respond to this point or take it away and write to me before Report to clarify the position? The scientists are worried about this because they often use tiny amounts of a psychoactive substance and want all that to be exempted from the Bill. Again, the Minister might find it helpful to discuss this with the experts; I do not pretend to be an expert on this matter myself. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My concern is that research in that area should not be impeded.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response, which was very positive. I was particularly pleased that she agreed that these matters should be dealt with in the Bill, which suggests agreement that they are sufficiently important for them to be dealt with there, and said that the Government will be bringing forward amendments before Report on the medicinal matter and may bring forward amendments on the research matter. I understand from the experts—the scientists—that it is important that there are amendments before Report on that issue. I hope the Minister may be able to respond immediately to that point because it will be difficult to leave this one unless we have that assurance.

On the low-dose issue, her reply was interesting because I tend to agree with her that surely these things are not for human consumption. On the other hand, the matter has been raised with me by people who know about these things, and I must express my gratitude for the willingness of Ministers to meet the experts and cover that issue and the others because they are the people who need to advise Ministers about exactly what the wording should be on all these matters. I express my gratitude, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 25 withdrawn.

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[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I could never hope to give my noble friend an intellectual answer as to why all alcohol is exempted, but perhaps I can try to give him a legal one and a practical political one.

Most alcohol policy in the United Kingdom is now controlled by the EU and we have a few little bits left. I refer the Committee to the last report conducted by EU Sub-Committee F on the EU alcohol strategy. It was an eye-opener for all of us. Given the parts of alcohol policy we control, if we were to be completely consistent, there would probably be an increase in the price of Scotch whisky. However, that cannot be done for a variety of reasons—not least, it would probably feed into nationalism. With regard to the other parts of the policy, cider is desperately underpriced. No Government have felt it appropriate—no doubt for political reasons—to increase the price and disadvantage manufacturers in the West Country. It may be that with only one Member left in the West Country—I am not meaning to be snide here—a future Labour Government may, in due course, feel it more politically acceptable to put up the price of cider.

The parts that are controlled by the EU mean that, for example, we see on wine and spirit bottles in this country how many units of alcohol are in a glass and how many are in the bottle. That is a purely voluntary system because we are not allowed, under EU rules, to make it compulsory. We also discovered on the committee that some young people—mainly women, although men as well—may be on some form of crash diet and think they can avoid fatty food and sugars and just drink white wine instead. We are not allowed to put the calorific value of a glass of wine on the bottle, except by some voluntary means.

In Scotland, they are trying to conduct an excellent experiment on unit pricing. There may be considerable merit in unit pricing and I think that the Government in England are watching carefully to see how they get on. But of course they have been taken to the European Court, where it may be regarded as a constraint on trade —so Scotland may be prohibited from using unit pricing under EU rules. I could go on, but I will not, because I do not want to be seen to be too mischievous on this. However, there are a lot of other aspects of alcohol policy that we are no longer completely in charge of.

The other, more serious point is that all of us on EU Sub-Committee F, including my colleagues, noble Lords and Baronesses who are much more experienced than I, began the report a year ago thinking that alcohol abuse was out of control in this country, that everyone was drinking more and that we had a terrible problem. We were very surprised to discover that alcohol use is declining, particularly among young people. We cannot have an EU alcohol strategy because every country has a completely different problem. They all have problems with binge drinking, but different age groups are bingeing on different kinds of alcohol. What we discovered is that a small minority are drinking more to excess. I think that I am right in saying that alcohol deaths through cirrhosis of the liver have increased, but it is a smaller minority drinking extraordinary amounts—one or two bottles of vodka or scotch a day, so long as they can afford it. But overall, alcohol reduction policies are working.

In conclusion, I say to my noble friend that if he wants to really have more control over alcohol policy and be able to implement his amendment, he will need to vote no in the referendum when it comes.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I want to make a brief but important point. In responding to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, will the Minister address his mind to not only the illogicality but the danger of exempting alcohol from the scope of the Bill while banning relatively very safe psychoactive substances? If this ban works at all—the Minister knows that I am pretty sceptical about it—the Government would, in effect, be preventing or discouraging very strongly young people from taking relatively very safe substances while encouraging them, one could argue, to drink alcohol, which we know is a killer drug. Therefore, I ask the Minister, in responding the noble Lord, Lord Norton, to address that particular point about the danger of banning substances while leaving alcohol exempt.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make a quick point because the subject of alcohol has been introduced into the debate. Although I entirely agree with my noble friend Lady Meacher about not classing all drugs together, the idea that we should include alcohol in this would, equally, cause huge problems. Every society in the world has always had something that allowed them to let their hair down at parties. Introducing the subject of alcohol into this sort of debate always makes me think of the definition of a puritan as someone who has a haunting fear that someone somewhere might be enjoying themselves. I get very worried when we try to cover all these things and try to stop everything.

As to the point about increasing the price of alcohol and unit pricing, some time ago some young people pointed out to me that if you increase the price of alcohol, the price of drugs becomes relatively cheaper. It drives people away from something over which we have relative control, which we deliver in controlled concentrations that we understand, into an area over which we have less control. That is very dangerous. We should be careful about trying to alter people’s behaviour in relation to alcohol by pricing mechanisms. There are a lot of people who may be medically qualified, but they do not understand market pressures. That is the only word of caution that I shall say on this matter.