Children: Drugs

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to help local authorities fulfil their statutory obligation to safeguard children with respect to preventing the use of controlled drugs.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am glad to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The Government say that it should not be an offence to be in possession of a substance for your own use. If the consequences of the legislation are similar to those that have been seen in Ireland, the head shops and the UK-based websites will be closed down. We know that the police have been tasked to go after the street dealers zealously. What is most likely to happen is that people will turn to online suppliers based in other countries and will receive packages, at any rate for their personal use, through the mail.

The amendment seems, first, logical. If it is to be legal to possess then you must contemplate some means whereby people can come into possession. Secondly, it seems realistic in the sense that, in practical terms, it will be impossible to close down the online trade. I know that powers are to be taken in an amendment we shall debate later to deal more effectively with packages, but the volume of mail and internet-based business is so huge that it is unrealistic to suppose that more than a tiny fraction of packages containing psychoactive substances will be intercepted. On the grounds of both logic and practicality, this is a sensible amendment and I hope the Government will feel able to accept it.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 56, which refers to Clause 56(2)(a). It is a probing amendment along similar lines to Amendment 21. As there are three different ways in which possession can become a criminal offence, the aim of the amendment is to clarify with Ministers the circumstances in which possession is not a criminal offence and those in which it is. I thank Mr Fortson QC for his briefing on this issue.

The Government have emphasised that the Bill does not make simple possession of a psychoactive substance a criminal offence, and I and many others certainly welcome that important step forward in the Bill. We know from the lengthy experience in Portugal, for example, that decriminalising possession there and investing more resources in treatment and less in prisons has resulted in fewer young people being addicted to drugs. That is surely one of our primary objectives. I find it enormously positive that the Government understand that issue and are taking it forward in the Bill.

As I said, there are three situations in which possession can become a criminal offence. If a person produces a psychoactive substance at home, for example by cooking something up in the kitchen, and they intend to consume it purely by themselves, they will have committed an offence. I want to make clear to your Lordships that I am not suggesting that anyone should cook up a psychoactive substance in their kitchen, albeit I have a number of friends who do just that—they create interesting and highly intoxicating alcoholic beverages in their kitchens. It is very easy to be rather hypocritical about these issues. Nevertheless, I wanted to make the point. It is not that I am promoting the idea of young people getting into the kitchen and creating these things. However, one has to think about the inconsistency.

If a young person is thinking about getting hold of a psychoactive substance and goes out to a dealer, buys a substance and goes home, they will not be committing a criminal offence if they are found with the substance in their hand. If they are found to have created, or are creating, the substance at home, they will be committing a criminal offence. It is possible to say that it could be very much safer for a young person to take a substance when they know its ingredients, rather than go to a crack dealer. I gather that that is what has happened in Ireland. As the head shops have closed, young people have gone to the crack dealers, who are doing a nice business with these psychoactive substances. One has to think of the incentive effect of these kinds of inconsistencies.

It is not only a criminal offence to create a substance in your kitchen. It is also a criminal offence, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, to import a substance for your own consumption. It is also a criminal offence if you export a substance for your own consumption—which might seem a slightly peculiar idea, but it is in the Bill. To illustrate the point, if someone has a psychoactive substance in their pocket, they are not committing an offence if they are at home. However, if they go on holiday with the substance tucked away in their pocket because they have forgotten it is there, and if it is still in their pocket when they come back, they will have committed two offences: importing and exporting a psychoactive substance. I know that that sounds a ludicrous example but one has to be conscious of the kinds of things that arise out of inconsistencies in legislation.

I understand from Mr Fortson QC—I would not have been aware of it otherwise—that this issue is of some importance. The offences to which I have referred are apparently described as lifestyle offences. Therefore, they trigger the most draconian provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Either the prosecutor or the court could initiate confiscation proceedings under POCA for one of these offences of possession of a psychoactive substance. That would seem, certainly to Mr Fortson QC, to be an entirely disproportionate response to what appears to be a rather insignificant offence. It was he who suggested that I should at least raise this matter in the House and seek the agreement of the Minister to ask her officials to look into these inconsistencies and to explore whether there is a way of finding a resolution that would feel somewhat more comfortable.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I hope indeed that, as the amendment proposes, the Government will consult in the relatively near future with the ACMD about the desirability of rescheduling cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 to facilitate the use of cannabis-based medications. I draw great encouragement from the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, has added her name to the amendment. She is an extremely distinguished psychologist and a very senior figure in the BMA. If Ministers are less than impressed by any contribution on scientific or medical subjects that I may be able to make, they should be fully aware that the noble Baroness is in support of the amendment.

Perhaps I may refer again to the pamphlet published under the auspices of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, Regulating Cannabis for Medical Use in the UK, authored by Professor Val Curran and Mr Frank Warburton. I remind the House that at the outset of that document, the authors state:

“Based on a review of the research literature, the most established uses of medicinal herbal cannabis in places where it is most widely available such as in the Netherlands include: The relief of pain and muscle spasms or cramps associated with multiple sclerosis or spinal cord damage; chronic neuropathic pain (mainly pain associated with the nervous system, e.g. caused by a damaged nerve, phantom pain, facial neuralgia or chronic pain which remains after the recovery from shingles); nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss and debilitation due to cancer or AIDS; nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy used in the treatment of cancer, hepatitis C or HIV infection and AIDS; Gilles de la Tourette syndrome; therapy-resistant glaucoma”.

That is a significant list of conditions and diseases which good scientific evidence indicates are alleviated by cannabis-based medication. Yet we have a state of affairs in this country, in contrast to others, in which such alleviation and medical benefit is hardly available to people. That contrasts strongly with the countries which regulate the medical use of cannabis and cannabis derivatives, including Canada, the Netherlands, Israel, Spain, Uruguay and some 20 or more states within the United States of America. These are all mature societies which have thought deeply about the practicalities of drug control. They have come to a variety of policy conclusions but none of them has taken the decision flippantly or negligently to ensure that medical cannabis can be available in appropriate circumstances for patients who would benefit from it.

The current situation in the UK is that there are numerous people for whom cannabis would incomparably alleviate chronic pain, for example, but who simply cannot get hold of it. That is because of the rigidity of the regulations, the lottery of prescribing—a small number of doctors are willing to prescribe but very many are not—the cost of research and the consequential additional cost of production, and the inflexibility of the licensing system. This case is thoroughly made out in the document from which I have quoted. It surely must be time that the British authorities thought again about this and made moves at least to reconsider, open-mindedly and in a practical and constructive fashion, whether we should at long last reschedule cannabis from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, we debated this issue at length in Committee and I will therefore speak only very briefly. I support very strongly the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which was spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

The Minister is aware that cannabis medication has proved a literal life-saver for children with Dravet syndrome, an extreme form of childhood epilepsy. If cannabis could be available as soon as Dravet syndrome was diagnosed, very severe brain damage caused by literally hundreds of fits every day could be avoided. The appalling side-effects of benzodiazepines for tiny children could also be done away with. On the basis of that single syndrome, the value of medicinal cannabis for these tiny children seems sufficient to make the case for cannabis to be shifted from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2.

As we know, Schedule 1 has in it only those drugs that are deemed to have no medicinal value at all. One simply cannot say that any longer of medicinal cannabis. The evidence of the medicinal value of cannabis for a range of other severe, long-term illnesses is now also irrefutable. That is a strong word when research is so difficult to undertake and the research studies have therefore been relatively small, but the evidence from countries across the world is now so strong, even on the basis of these small studies, that I do not think we should be questioning it.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I will not take up the House’s time, but I wish to express my strong support for these amendments. It is eminently reasonable to have right of appeal, as the noble Baroness said, bearing in mind the considerable penalty that somebody will suffer if their livelihood is suddenly withdrawn from them. It also seems eminently sensible to set the standard of proof at the criminal level. I support these amendments and hope very much that the Minister can comply with those two proposals.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I, too, endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, proposed. There will need to be very convincing arguments from the Government as to why there should not be a right of appeal, and I have much sympathy also with what has been said on the standard of proof.

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[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I am conscious that I am prevailing upon the patience and tolerance of the House in moving an amendment at this time of the evening and at the very tail end of the Bill. However, it is on an important topic which warrants our consideration.

I emphasise that this is, of course, a probing amendment, which, if it were pressed seriously, would be a wrecking amendment. It is no part of our role to wreck the legislation; rather, we seek to improve it and offer advice to our elected colleagues in the other place on how to make it better.

My amendment proposes that the provisions of this Bill should not be brought into force,

“before both Houses of Parliament have debated the conclusions of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in 2016”.

I think that special session is due to be held in March of 2016. When, some time ago, the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, announced that there would be a special session of the UN General Assembly on drugs, he urged all member states to,

“conduct a wide-ranging and open debate that considers all options”.

Indeed, some Governments across the world have developed rational policy in relation to drugs and have led public opinion. I have in mind the Czech Republic, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Uruguay and, of course, a number of states of the United States of America.

In 2009, three former Latin American presidents wrote in an article in the Wall Street Journal that,

“it’s high time to replace an ineffective strategy with more humane and efficient drug policies. … we must shatter the taboos that inhibit public debate about drugs in our societies. … the long-term solution is to reduce demand for drugs in the main consumer countries. To move in this direction, it is essential to differentiate among illicit substances according to the harm they inflict”.

That differentiation is conspicuously lacking in this legislation.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose membership is a roll call of eminent and respected international figures—such as Kofi Annan, Paul Volcker, Javier Solana, former UN Commissioners for Human Rights and for Refugees, former presidents of Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico—said in a report published in 2011:

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. … fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed”.

These were formidable indictments of the prohibitionist orthodoxy.

In a debate in your Lordships’ House on 17 October 2013, a former Lord Justice of Appeal told us that it is perfectly clear,

“that there has to be a rethink on drugs in this country. It clearly is not working”.—[Official Report, 17/10/13; col. 677.]

Public opinion in Britain has been shifting. It is a generational change, and a change that is registered right across the political spectrum regardless of how people vote. Younger people feel that prohibition has failed and that a different set of policies is needed. YouGov research for the Sun newspaper in 2012 found that 67% of people thought the policy was working badly. Ipsos MORI research in 2013 for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation found that 53% of people thought that it was right to regulate the production and supply of cannabis and to decriminalise possession.

The United Kingdom, as one of the world’s major consumers of drugs, especially cocaine, has a major responsibility for the devastation that has been wrought in the producer countries and transit countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and west Africa. It behoves us to consider the implications of our own habits of self-indulgence and patterns of consumption for unfortunate people the world over. Policy should be based on evidence and experience, not on taboo, fear of what the tabloids may say, a fixed mindset, moralism, and certainly not on panic.

There is a crisis in relation to new psychoactive substances. We all agree about that but the policy response needs to be based on evidence and needs to be rational. As I have said before, it seems futile to attempt to overlay on the digital global economy a system of prohibition that failed to work effectively in the pre-digital era; nor do I think that idiosyncratic legislation in one country or one small group of countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland and Romania, is going to provide the right solution—there is no solution—or, rather, an appropriate range of policies.

Earlier today when we were referring to Ireland and the difficulties that the Border Force might face in enforcing the bans on importation, the Minister observed how difficult it is when a country—in that case, Ireland—seeks to legislate in isolation, and seemed to be arguing for a more cohesive international approach. In that respect, I very much agree with him.

The European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction, in its very recently published annual report, observes that the complexity of the drugs problem is far greater now than it was 20 years ago. It notes that manufacture, supply, retail, relevant websites and payment processing may all occur in different countries. Crudely simplistic unilateral legislation cannot even begin to work.

I believe it is time for all the political parties to admit the failures of policy over the past half-century. I believe that the United Kingdom should join the countries that are willing to think afresh about these problems and that we should adopt a thoroughly constructive approach in the lead-up to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session. I would be most grateful if the Minister told us what part the Home Office is playing in the developing discussions.

My noble friend Lady Meacher, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform, has been intensively engaged in international diplomacy on behalf of the group to try to ensure that there is a productive outcome of the process leading up to the UNGASS. In the mean time, we should refrain from implementing what I am sorry to repeat that I believe is ill-conceived prohibitionist legislation, at any rate until we see the outcome of these global discussions and Parliament has had the opportunity to deliberate upon the discussions and findings of the UN General Assembly. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I support this amendment because of the enormity of the importance of the UNGASS to global drug policy. I will take less than two minutes of the House’s time but I plead with your Lordships to bear with me.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform has provided a document which we hope will be of interest to the Government. We worked for about 18 months on the document, called Guidance on Interpreting the UN Drug Conventions. We have worked closely with senior Mexican officials and experts from around the world on the document and we have had discussions with I cannot even say how many country representatives. I spoke at the Vienna CND on it.

As we speak, the President of a very significant Latin American country has his office and Ministers discussing the proposal that he would like to adopt to present the essentials from this guidance document to the UNGASS next year. This week a Latin American ambassador said he very much hoped that the UK Government would support the President’s initiative. The former president of the Organization of American States supports our work. The European Commission wants to work with us on an EU document to go to UNGASS because it is so impressed with our document.

Very briefly, the guidance urges UN member states across the globe to begin a process to develop evidence-based policy. The UN conventions upon which we all base our policies were not developed on the basis of evidence of which policies would achieve the overarching objective of the UN conventions to advance,

“the health and welfare of mankind”.

Rather, global drug policy has been based upon a wrong-headed psychological theory of motivation. Punish everyone involved with drugs and we will achieve a drug-free world: so said President Nixon all those years ago in 1971. The opposite has of course occurred in the last 50 years.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

I would like to point out that the Government introduced what I consider to be a very good instrument, the temporary class drug orders. These could be sped up. You can, or should be able to, put an order in place quickly for a 12-month period while an assessment is undertaken. If the drug is not deemed to be safe, it is placed under the Misuse of Drugs Act. There is an instrument in place.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

From all his experience, does the noble and learned Lord anticipate that there may be problems in the criminal justice system over definition and establishing that a substance is indeed psychoactive; and that in the case of individuals it is their intention to supply illegally? Also, does he have any anxieties about the practicalities of enforcement? In the interests of the courts and of wider society, it is important that legislation that lays impossible burdens on the police, HMRC and other enforcement authorities is not enacted. They are going to have a large, complex and difficult additional set of tasks under this legislation, at a time of diminishing resources.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Meacher and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the new clause proposed in Amendment 11 follows very closely on the debate which we held just before the dinner break. In their proposals in this Bill the Government are setting a very complex and difficult task for police officers, customs officers and others. The definition of a psychoactive substance is quite deliberately broad and, some would say, vague. Powders and pills look much alike and the question is, how is an officer to know, first, if a substance is indeed a psychoactive one and, secondly, what is in the mind of the person in possession of that substance? How are they to determine the intention? That is essential in the establishment of whether or not a criminal offence is being committed. I would also be grateful if the Minister told us whether he envisages that there will be a de minimis level of psychoactivity and below that level, enforcement officers will not be worrying and will not seek to enforce the regime that the Bill creates. Or, are the Government saying that any substance which is at any level psychoactive is to be controlled, in the sense that this particular legislation will control it?

As we have also acknowledged in earlier debates, there is a shortage of forensic facilities in this country. That is why the Home Secretary belatedly, just before the Bill was tabled in Parliament, wrote to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to ask,

“how best we can establish a comprehensive scientific approach for determining psychoactivity for evidential purposes”.

That suggests that the Home Secretary is rushing into enacting legislation before she has any clear idea as to how it would work. What we know is that significant additional burdens will be laid upon police whose numbers and resources have been diminishing and may well continue to do so. These measures, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has already put to the House, may further inhibit research in important respects and create multiple new possibilities for the criminalisation of people who are in some way involved with new psychoactive substances.

I propose that the Government owe it to consumers, businesses, research institutions and those responsible for enforcement to explain exactly what they intend, and to advise them all on how this legislation would work. The Minister kindly undertook to write to us, the Peers who have been involved in consideration of this Bill, between Committee and Report. I suggest that in due course the Government should write to a much wider range of readers—people who will have responsibilities created under this legislation, who will need to understand the definition of and the practicalities of identifying a psychoactive substance, and what is in the minds of people they apprehend who may be contemplating purposes that the Government wish to discourage and would make a criminal offence. That is the burden of the new clause proposed in Amendment 11. The Secretary of State must issue guidance before this Bill comes into force and keep it regularly updated thereafter as to how users, enforcement authorities and others can identify individual psychoactive substances, the degree of their psychoactivity, their safe uses and their relative harms.

I now move to the new clause proposed in Amendment 12, in the same group. If people are to look after themselves and others—their children, friends and people whose interests they care about—they are going to need full and reliable information about psychoactive substances. We have heard much about how the internet can be a force for bad, but it can also be a force for good in its ability to disseminate information that may be extremely valuable and helpful in enabling people’s safety to be preserved. It is the Government’s responsibility to use the means at their disposal to provide the fullest information they can. The previous Government, I think, relaunched the FRANK website, the earlier version of which was considerably criticised, but I praise them for doing this because it is a genuine effort to provide fairly full and certainly honest information about psychoactive substances.

The difficulty about the Talk to FRANK website is that its official provenance and rather starchy tone mean that it will not be the go-to website for young people who want to find out about drugs. While it is important that the Government maintain a website of this kind and amplify the information that it provides, they should recognise that the work they do in preparing and maintaining such a website is complementary to other, unofficial sites that are created and maintained by experienced people, whose motive is good, because they want to share information about the realities of psychoactive substances and protect people from coming to harm by their use of such substances. I have in mind websites created by organisations such as DrugScope, Bluelight, Urban75, SafeOrScam and PillReports, which are examples of some of the websites to which people can go to learn about psychoactive substances. Those websites are maintained with very good intentions with regard to the public good—public safety and health—and I therefore hope that the Government see their work as complementary.

At all events, we need to capture as much evidence as we can about the substances, so that we better understand the harms we are trying to prevent, the ills we need to cure and the effectiveness of the measures taken to prevent people coming to harm, and to remedy— so far as is possible—the harms that people experience. We should learn as much as we can from collaboration with other countries; the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is an excellent model of international information sharing and co-operation. However, we cannot expect the people of this country habitually to turn to the website of the EMCDDA; they need to have something that is designed for them, and more appropriate and accessible for them.

My second proposal, in subsection (b) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 12, is that the Secretary of State should provide,

“a network of testing centres, readily accessible at no charge to users and others, at which they can be informed about the identity, composition, toxicity and potential harms to human health of any substances brought in by them which there is reason to think may be psychoactive”.

As I understand it, that service is available in the Netherlands. It appears that they have a fuller range of forensic resources and facilities for the identification and testing of substances, and that access to those facilities is freely available to the public at large as well as to officials and enforcement authorities. We should seek to construct such a model in this country, not least because an early alert to a bad consignment of drugs, which is very dangerous, could save lives. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, on both those amendments. We talked a lot about legislation earlier on today, but we know, both internationally and from the Home Affairs Select Committee and others, that legislation does not make very much difference at all to the key issues relating to drugs, whether traditional drugs or new psychoactive substances. The important job the Government have concerns information. I have said it before and will say it again: young people do not want to kill themselves, believe it or not, and they do not even want to harm themselves and finish up in hospital. Why do they kill themselves and finish up in hospital? Because they do not have the information they need to keep themselves safe. Why do they not have the information? Because far too many substances are banned in a rather simplistic way. Countries such as the Netherlands, which have coffee shops where people can get cannabis, have very little problem with heroin, for example. There are other ways of keeping people safe. But the most important way, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, says, is information. I agree with his ideas about how this should be done—it cannot be typical government information. It really is important. If we stopped focusing on legislation quite so much and focused on some of these other issues, we might actually make some progress.

I want also to support the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in relation to the testing centres. Testing centres would be a very important adjunct if we were to have a more proportionate system where low-harm substances would be regulated, labelled and so on, as recommended by the European Commission and approved by the European Parliament. If we had a proportionate system like that, and had testing centres, a young person could go into a testing centre and ask whether a substance was low harm and okay to take. With a combination of a proportionate legal system, testing centres and really good information, we would begin to have a really good drugs policy. Would that not be wonderful? We could lead the world with such a policy.

Many Latin American countries talk about these things. They know just how bad the war on drugs can be. They know just how important it is for the demand end of the drugs market to be managed effectively in order to save them from tens of thousands of deaths a year, corruption, government failure and all the rest of it. It is absolutely disastrous across the Atlantic. In my view, we have a responsibility to ourselves and our young people but also to Latin America and central American countries.

I very strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. I really hope that Ministers will take it very seriously and somehow link it with a proportionate, rational system of drug control.