Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2015

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, the draft order, which was laid before Parliament on 17 December 2014, supports the Government’s ongoing efforts to disrupt the supply of new psychoactive substances where the evidence and expert advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs—the ACMD—indicate that they are dangerous drugs. This House recently approved an order updating the UK’s drug controls to protect the public from the serious risks associated with a number of such substances, which came into force on 7 January.

Today’s order will bring under class A control two substances: one being MT-45 and the other 4,4’-DMAR, which I will refer to under its street name, Serotoni, because it is easier to pronounce. I commend our expert adviser, the ACMD, for its ongoing and intensive work on monitoring the available evidence and advising the Government on actions to take against any number of new psychoactive substances that have the potential to cause serious harm, including legislative intervention necessary to protect the public.

The ACMD advises that MT-45 is a potent analgesic similar to morphine. It was developed by a Japanese pharmaceutical company in the 1970s and subsequently abandoned. It has similar health risks to already controlled opioids, including respiratory depression, coma and death. In some instances, loss of hearing was also reported. Although this compound has not been detected through the UK’s early-warning mechanisms, it has been identified in other EU countries and linked to a number of fatalities in Sweden.

Serotoni is a synthetic stimulant drug which has been detected in a number of EU countries, including the UK, and linked to harms including agitation, convulsions and hyperthermia. In a number of cases, these symptoms were followed by death. In late 2013, there were reports of sudden deaths from substance abuse in Northern Ireland. It was not obvious that they were related due to incidences of polysubstance use and drug bingeing or to users simply not knowing what drug they took, but following the completion of 20 inquests into these fatalities in the summer of 2014 they were linked to Serotoni.

The Government further intend to make two statutory instruments to complement the order, as recommended by the ACMD. These instruments, subject to the negative resolution procedure, will designate and schedule MT-45 and Serotoni as drugs which have no known legitimate uses beyond the research sector in order that they will remain available for research purposes under Home Office licence. I also wish to bring to noble Lords’ attention that these two substances are being considered for EU-wide control. Having received the ACMD’s advice and considered the evidence on harm as required under our laws, we are in a position to ban these drugs to protect the British public at the earliest opportunity. I commend the order to the Committee.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. We welcome the order. It is one of a series of orders we have considered on which we have discussed issues around so-called legal highs. I know that neither she nor I like that term but, unfortunately, it is the one used in the Explanatory Notes. It is in inverted commas, so perhaps that justifies it, and “new psychoactive substances” clearly does not roll off the tongue in the same way. However, such terms are one of the things that cause young people to misunderstand and think they are doing something funny and safe when that is the last thing they are doing. I also thank the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for its work. Its explanation of the dangers is very helpful. We are not the experts on this; we rely on the experts. The council’s expertise leads us to only one conclusion: that these drugs should be banned.

Perhaps I may check one thing that the Minister said. She said that this drug has not been seen in the UK—I think that that is in the Explanatory Notes as well—but is available in Europe. In fact, it is available online, which means that it is quite likely that it could be in the UK. I come back to a point that I have made many times. Unless we tackle and get to grips with online sales—which means looking internationally but also at head shops and other suppliers of drugs— we are not going to be able to tackle this. The order therefore has our full support. I simply add the rider that I am very worried about this increase: you just have to go online and Google some of these drugs and you can find out where to get them. We support the order.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Baroness for her helpful comments. I fully agree with her points about glamorising these drugs by using the unhelpful term “legal high”, the online availability of some of these drugs and the head shops continuing to try to race ahead of where the legislation has got up to. I commend the order to the Committee.