Draft Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) order 2016

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 General Committees

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. It might be cold outside, but there is a little warmth inside this room.

As I understand it, and as the Minister explained really well, the draft order will bring a range of cannabinoids and one anabolic steroid under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Its contents are in accordance with recommendations from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and it has been made after careful evaluation of the harmful societal impact of the substances.

Article 4 of the order will bring the anabolic steroid known as dienedione under permanent control as a class C drug. As we have heard, professional athletes are currently prohibited from using dienedione, as it is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency as a performance-enhancing drug. UK Anti-Doping has an arrangement with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The arrangement is sensible, because substances that are manufactured to aid elite sports performance can become popular among amateur sportsmen and women. Sometimes these performance-enhancing substances can carry really significant health risks. We are pleased that the ACMD undertook a review of dienedione at the request of the doping agency in 2015 and that the advisory council recommends controlling the substance as a class C drug because it is similar to other anabolic steroids, which have been found to have a number of really harmful effects, including cardiovascular difficulties and liver dysfunction.

The advisory council notes that anabolic steroids pose a particular risk to the young people. They state that the drugs

“potentially disrupt the normal pattern of growth and behavioural maturation.”

The ACMD points out that controlling the substance may help to reduce both demand and supply, minimising the risk of health harms, as the Minister stated. Given that carefully crafted and evidence-based recommendation from the advisory council, Her Majesty’s Opposition support the proposed controls on dienedione.

Article 3 of the order brings a range of third-generation synthetic cannabinoids under permanent control as class B substances. Synthetic cannabinoids are drugs that are designed to mimic the psychoactive effects of cannabis, as the Minister stated. Looking at past ACMD reports, there can be no doubt of the harm that these substances bring. Synthetic cannabinoids can produce severe adverse effects, including increased heart rate, panic attacks and convulsions. A number of users have visited A&E as a result of vomiting, hallucinations, and so on.

Early academic research suggests that users show evidence of acute withdrawal associated with cessation of long-term use of these products, suggesting dependence. The ACMD warns that there have been

“reports of psychosis and other psychiatric presentations associated with their use.”

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction stated that

“their use has caused many serious poisonings and even deaths—sometimes these have manifested as outbreaks of mass poisonings.”

Given those harms, the Government have rightly moved to control synthetic cannabinoids substances in the past, as they did in both 2009 and 2012. However, the ACMD reported in November 2014 that since that action was taken, a third generation of synthetic cannabinoids, outside of the scope of controls, has entered the market and become widely available. In that report, a revised generic description of synthetic cannabinoids was put forward by the ACMD and accepted by Parliament under an order similar to this one.

This game of whack-a-mole, as I like to put it, has been going on between drug suppliers and the Government over synthetic cannabinoids, showing just why we needed legislation such as the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, which introduced a ban on all substances that mimic the effects of controlled drugs. We hope that that Act, which came into force this year, will finally allow the Government to get one step ahead of the market and will significantly reduce the supply of these dangerous substances. May I also say, quite selfishly, that it might even the reduce the number of statutory instruments before Parliament?

This is the first order to place new psychoactive substances under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 that Parliament has been asked to affirm since the Psychoactive Substances Act came into force. The Opposition were clear during the passage of the Psychoactive Substances Act that it should not be used as an excuse not to place dangerous substances under the stricter controls provided for by the Misuse of Drugs Act, so we are pleased to see the order. However, although we welcome the controls brought by the Psychoactive Substances Act and by the order, we have always been clear that legislation can be effective only if there is a wider strategy to reduce the demand for harmful substances. That is particularly true for synthetic cannabinoids, which, as Mentor points out, have become prevalent among vulnerable groups such as street homeless communities and prisoners. Hon. Members who served on the Psychoactive Substances Bill Committee—some are in this Committee Room today—will remember well our debates on that issue. Such vulnerable groups are usually less responsive to changes in the legal status of substances and in greater need of targeted intervention programmes.

During the passage of the Psychoactive Substances Act, the Government appeared to agree with us. They promised that the Act would be rolled out alongside a comprehensive drug awareness and education strategy. The previous Minister, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), wrote to me—he wrote to me quite a lot, actually—and made that pledge:

“Going forward, we are developing a strategic communications plan to support the implementation of the Bill in April 2016. In developing our plans, we are recognising the value of raising public awareness of the harms of drug misuse”.

The Act came into force on 26 May; here we are, five months later, and the Government have still not released the promised education and awareness strategy. All that has been produced is the “Resource pack for informal educators and practitioners” on the Home Office website, which directs people to existing Government services such as “Talk to Frank”. I am not going to reiterate our debate about “Talk to Frank”, because that would take way too long and because my concerns have been outlined on numerous occasions, but we reached a conclusion across the Psychoactive Substances Bill Committee that the “Talk to Frank” service was frankly not doing what it needed to. I was expecting much more from the Government, and I know that drug charities were too. Perhaps the Government are planning to include a comprehensive education and awareness strategy for new psychoactive substances within their five-year reduction strategy, which was due to be published this summer but was not. Will the Minister explain why we have yet to see that strategy? Could she tell us when we will be able to see it, if the Government still intend to produce one?

I will push the Minister on one more point, which she did not cover in her speech. I am told that synthetic cannabinoids act on the same brain cell receptors as natural cannabis. People who suffer from multiple sclerosis and other such conditions may therefore be tempted to use such substances to alleviate their truly difficult and awful symptoms. I really have enormous sympathy for anyone suffering from multiple sclerosis who seeks the most effective pain relief available and who therefore seeks, in the absence of suitable prescribed products, to use substances available from local traders, shall we call them. Sufferers should not need to use illegal and unregulated substances that are in themselves harmful in order to have access to the medical benefits that are ascribed to cannabis.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The Scottish National party passed a resolution at its conference last weekend that called for exactly what the hon. Lady is talking about: the decriminalisation of cannabis for medicinal purposes. I understand that that resolution had the backing of the First Minister of Scotland. It is interesting to note the direction of travel there. Having said that, the Scottish Government have control over health, but not over this issue. The hon. Lady, and any other Member who wishes to do so, may feel free to back the devolution of those powers, so that the Scottish Government can make those decisions. I support what she says about decriminalisation for medicinal purposes.

[Lyn Brown]

I was not going that far. Let me be really clear. I am not going that far; I am starting to tremble. THC is the active ingredient in cannabis. It is used effectively in a drug called Sativex. Sativex is already licensed in the UK to relieve the symptoms of conditions such as MS. The Minister may be aware that Sativex is not available on the NHS in England, due to the cost of the drug, whereas in Wales, Sativex is available to sufferers on prescription.

Sufferers of conditions such as MS—and, I am told, pain from some cancers that cannot be controlled by drugs that the NHS currently uses—should not suffer greater pain and difficulty just because they live, on this occasion only, on the wrong side of the border. We certainly do not want to push sufferers into unregulated, synthetic and potentially dangerous cannabinoid usage. This is something that the Government could and should get a grip of.

So while it is ultimately a decision for NICE, will the Minister talk to her colleagues in the Department of Health and try to get NICE to look at this again? To conclude, the Opposition support the order before us. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has made clear recommendations that these substances should be controlled after evaluating the evidence that they pose a societal risk. Legislation which controls substances will be successful only if it is part of an overall strategy to reduce demand for harmful substances.

The Government’s failure to provide a comprehensive education and awareness strategy alongside psychoactive substances and the delay in publishing their five-year strategy to reduce drug harm suggest that they are not taking this component of reducing drug harms seriously enough. Let us face it, the people who are caught up in use of these harmful and addictive substances will suffer most from the Government’s failure. It is very costly to pick up the pieces of blighted lives. Prevention, in this case as in most others, is much better than cure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He makes a good point. I am a passionate localist and think that communities working together often find the best solutions—better solutions than we find here in Westminster—but it is important to provide consistent, high-quality services and educational support by sharing best practice. I absolutely assure him that we will be doing that, and I will work with my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Coming on to issues relating to the decriminalisation of cannabis, I want to make it absolutely clear that the policy of the Government is not to decriminalise cannabis, which is clearly a very harmful—

[Anne McLaughlin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I will answer the question. Cannabis is clearly a very harmful substance, and there is no evidence at all to support its decriminalisation. Moreover, we already have a very good regime that allows classified drugs to be used in scientific research and the development of medicinal substances—not only cannabis. I assure hon. Members that I have met with my colleagues over in the Department of Health, and that my officials have been in touch with officials there to re-examine the existing regime to ensure that it is not preventing scientific research, or stopping pharmaceutical companies from asking for licences to use cannabis.

We have talked about one particular medicine today, but a whole range of research is in fact funded by the Department of Health, such as research into the use of cannabis in the treatment of not only cancer but Parkinson’s disease. I have assured myself, through working with my colleagues, that the existing regime is fit for purpose and is producing beneficial effects. If at any stage scientists, researchers or medical researchers come to me with evidence that our regime is standing in the way of the positive use of listed substances that might have medicinal or positive effects, of course I will examine that evidence.

[Sarah Newton]

I will also take the intervention of the hon. Member for Glasgow North East.

[Anne McLaughlin]

For the record, the Minister stated that the British Government had no intention of decriminalising cannabis, but neither I nor the Scottish National party was calling for that. The resolution that we passed specifically concerned medicinal purposes. I wanted to put that on the record again, in case there was any misunderstanding.

[The Chair]

Before I call the Minister, I point out that I will not allow a general debate on decriminalisation.