EU Drugs Strategy: EUC Report

Lord Cobbold Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cobbold]

My Lords, I join those who welcome the European Union Committee’s 26th report of Session 2010-12. It is an excellent document and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the members of the committee on its creation. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and her team on the detailed response that they have produced and circulated to our meeting today on all aspects of the report. I am only sorry that she is unable to be with us today. She has, however, asked me to deliver her speech to the meeting today in her absence:

“I, Baroness Meacher, am profoundly sorry not to be able to be present today for this important debate on Lord Hannay’s valuable European Union Committee report on European drug strategy”.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is to be applauded for the steering this inquiry through challenging territory and for ensuring that the report says so many useful things. I hope very much that the Minister will feel able to respond positively to the report, with some concrete proposals for action within the UK. It is helpful that the Hannay report proposes that most aspects of drug policy should remain within the competence of member states, rather than at this time attempting a pan-European reform strategy. European states like Portugal, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain have shown the way to the rest of the world in developing and evaluating more health-orientated and cost-effective drug policies that seek to avoid criminalising problematic drug users. Individual member states could learn from those countries and take action. This would no doubt be more difficult at the EU level. Having said that, it would be most helpful if the EU would undertake a review of the best drug policies across Europe, with a view to drawing up a scientific document setting out the evidence of what works.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform agrees with the Hannay report that the EU’s early warning system on newly developed psychoactive substances within member states and beyond is of considerable importance. In our inquiry into possible regulatory controls over these substances, it has become apparent that speedy access to information about new substances is a vital prerequisite to taking any appropriate action. Our inquiry has highlighted the importance of information for potential users of the new psychoactive substances, and for their parents, teachers and other influential adults, in reducing use. We particularly welcome the support from the Hannay committee for,

“the exploration of alternatives to banning new psychoactive substances, such as placing them within regulated markets similar to those that already exist for alcohol and tobacco, which attempt to control use through education and treatment rather than criminalisation”.

Our report, in the autumn, will be considering very carefully the pros and cons of different regulatory systems, as well as their implications for use of these substances among young people. An important issue for all EU countries is whether banning the supply of specified new psychoactive substances should be linked to the banning of use, with all the negative consequences that that entails.

Again, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform warmly welcomes the positive comments of the Hannay report on the Portuguese public-health orientated national drug strategy and the encouragement to member states to study each other’s policies and to be more willing to learn from one another. It also welcomes the committee’s support for prioritising the evaluation of drug strategies. At this time of austerity, it will be important to evaluate the costs and benefits of allocating resources to health-based policies rather than to criminal justice responses.

Will the Minister agree to an evaluation of the possible decriminalisation of drug use in the UK—which is of course quite different from legalisation—as a possible response to the growing evidence of the cost effectiveness of such policies? The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, rightly raises the issue of the location of responsibility for drug policy within Europe. The report goes further and says that the EU strategy,

“offers a golden opportunity to widen the public debate, to consider as dispassionately as possible the different policies and approaches”.

These are most valuable observations. The same issues apply to individual member states. Again, it would be most helpful if the UK Government would establish an independent review committee to consider the appropriateness of the Home Office as the lead department for drug policy in this country. There are alternative models within Europe and an evaluation of these would be helpful. Following the reasoning of the Hannay report, it would of course be wise to incorporate this matter within a wider review of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Again, I offer our congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and his committee.