UK Drugs Policy

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high; further notes that the independent UK Drugs Policy Commission highlighted the fact that Government is spending around £3 billion a year on policies that are often counter-productive; believes that an evidence-based approach is required in order for Parliament and the Government to pursue the most effective drugs policy in the future; welcomes the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its Ninth Report of 2012-13, HC 184, that the Government consider all the alternatives to the UK’s failing drug laws and learn from countries that have adopted a more evidence-based approach; notes that the Government has responded positively to this recommendation and is in the process of conducting an international comparators study to consider the effectiveness of national drug policies adopted by a range of countries; and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I am delighted to open this debate and would like to start by thanking both the Backbench Business Committee for its support and the nearly 135,000 people who signed the petition I set up on the No. 10 website, which has enabled us to have this debate.

The motion notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high. It makes the case that there is a wealth of evidence to that effect and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.

The motion has been very carefully written so as not to promote one policy model over and above another. It simply advances the principle that our drugs policy should be based on evidence of what works to reduce harm to individuals, communities and families affected by drugs misuse. In order to get that evidence, we need a thorough analysis and assessment of the current legislation, including comparing it with alternative models. For that reason, I hope that hon. Members who are in favour of a prohibition-based drugs policy, as well as those who advocate alternative approaches, will support this motion, because, in essence, what it seeks to do is get the evidence.

Since the 1971 Act was passed, there has been no process of reviewing whether it is achieving its dual objectives of reducing drugs misuse and the associated social harms.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Lady. It is about 30-odd years since the Act was introduced and there should be a reassessment to see how we can bring it up to date with a proper policy.

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[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and absolutely agree with him. Reviews take place in many other policy areas to check whether objectives are being met, and it is high time we had such a review of the 1971 Act.

The Government’s drugs strategy is itself subject to review, but that is a self-limiting process. In other words, it intends to look only at value for money and in terms only of whether the amount spent is more or less than the value of the positive outcomes. That review will be carried out in 2015 and it will not consider whether other approaches would be better value for money. Neither will it include the negative outcomes—the presumably unintended consequences—of the policy in its calculations.

I warmly welcome today’s publication of the Government’s international comparators study. I pay tribute to the Minister for Crime Prevention, who is in his place, for the leadership he has shown in the process. The study has been long awaited. It was commissioned on the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee and is a considered review of the different approaches to drug policy pursued around the world.

The review indicates that introducing an alternative to prohibition would not, contrary to some claims, boost drug use, and it could save millions of pounds if users were treated for addiction rather than jailed. It seems that the evidence for the issue of drug use to be moved to the Department of Health, in order for the focus to be on treating rather than punishing addiction, is overwhelming as well. This is just the first step towards a drugs policy that puts harm reduction first, and I welcome it warmly, but we urgently need to follow up on this comparison of international approaches and learn the lessons from it for our own UK-based legislation. That is why this debate is so important.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I also congratulate the hon. Lady, not only on her award, which is well deserved, but on her work on this issue? In respect of following up, I also welcome the report led by the Minister. The Home Affairs Committee, prompted by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), will hold a separate session specifically on our last set of recommendations. It will be held in Cambridge, in honour of the hon. Gentleman, and I hope we can persuade the hon. Lady to come along and speak.

[Caroline Lucas]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for all his leadership on this issue as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). I am very happy to take up that kind invitation. To be serious, I am very glad that the Home Affairs Committee is doing that extra piece of very important work.

Such work is important because drug misuse destroys individuals, families and communities, and an ineffective drugs policy only compounds that damage. All too often, success in the war on drugs is measured in numbers of arrests or seizures of drugs, but many of us believe that we should assess whether the harms associated with drug misuse are rising or declining.

The Home Secretary acknowledged in the foreword to her Government’s drug strategy:

“Individuals do not take drugs in isolation from what is happening in the rest of their lives.”

I agree. Poverty, social exclusion and inequality all have an impact on drug use and drug markets. Research by the Equality Trust has shown a clear and demonstrable correlation between drug misuse and inequality. There is a strong tendency for drug abuse to be more common in countries, such as the UK, that are more unequal. Ending social exclusion must therefore be at the heart of any effective strategy to reduce drug-related harms. To do that, we need to marshal the evidence.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Contrary to press reports, many of us on the Conservative Benches believe that evidence-based policy would be more effective in dealing with the scourge of drugs.

[Caroline Lucas]

What the hon. Gentleman says is absolutely true. In a sense, this is not a party political matter: people from across this House and the other place believe that we should have an evidence-based approach, rather than an approach that for too long has been dictated by fear, particularly fear of the tabloids. It is important to have this debate.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her award, even though, as I was nominated for it, I feel some frustration. It has been a great pleasure to work with her on this issue. Her voice is, and I hope will continue to be, very valuable in this place. Will she confirm that many newspapers are now coming out in favour of change, and that the public want change? Today, The Sun shows that roughly two thirds of people want a reform of drugs policy.

[Caroline Lucas]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being nominated, and I am sure he will win next time. His point is incredibly important. Until now, politicians often thought that they were reflecting public opinion, but they are now massively behind it, as the poll in The Sun absolutely demonstrates.

It strikes me that a time of austerity, with the Government seemingly looking under every last stone to find money to save, is an odd time not to consider drugs policy, given that so much money is invested in the current drugs regime. Yet drugs policy seems to be completely divorced from the usual considerations about public spending and the good use of taxpayers’ money, and we simply have no proper public mechanism for knowing whether the money spent on the so-called war on drugs has been put to good effect.

No one now buys alcohol in unmarked bottles from the back of a pub—that would be dangerous and unnecessary—but for 40 years we have left our children to do exactly that with drugs. There is no denying that drug misuse has the potential to wreck lives, but surely it is time to be honest about the damage caused by the drug laws, which can cause a proliferation of criminality and public harm. The entire drugs trade has been handed over to the worlds’ racketeers and gangsters. The drugs market has soared, and that has brought untold misery. Essentially, the current market is almost wholly uncontrolled.

From speaking to young people in my constituency, it is clear that many of them can get hold of drugs far more easily than alcohol, which is surely wrong. When someone tries to get hold of alcohol, they at least have to show an ID card if they are thought to be under age. Drug dealers do not care about someone’s ID or anything else; they care only about their profits. I believe that the current policy is based on a deliberate ignorance about the effect of drugs.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate, and on her extraordinary petition, which has 130,000 signatures. I understand that 20% of people who have taken heroin said that they got it for the first time in jail. If we cannot control drugs in jail, how on earth are we supposed to control them on our streets?

[Caroline Lucas]

That is an extremely good point. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention, which speaks for itself.

If we are to design a better drugs policy that is based on evidence, we need to agree on the objectives of drugs policy. For me, it is about protecting people, particularly the young and vulnerable, as well as reducing crime, improving health, promoting security and development, providing good value for money and protecting human rights. In setting out why that is important, I will say a little more about the impact of the current drugs policy and why I believe it adds to the case for a review; I will talk a little about the growing consensus on rethinking the current approach to drugs policy; and I will say a little about Brighton and Hove, where my constituency is situated, where the approach of following the evidence as far as possible has delivered benefits.

Before doing any of that, I would like to talk about Martha. Martha’s mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, is in Parliament with us today. Like so many parents, she had always wanted to protect her child. However, on 20 July 2013, she learned that that was not always possible. On that day, Martha swallowed half a gram of MDMA powder—ecstasy—and died. She was 15 years old. Today, 30 October, would have been Martha’s 17th birthday. She is not celebrating that birthday because the Misuse of Drugs Act did not protect her. Making MDMA illegal did not protect Martha. We owe it to her and to Anne-Marie, and to the many other people who have died drug-related deaths and their families and loved ones, to ensure that in future each and every one of us is offered the best possible protection by our drugs laws.

In her incredibly moving blog, “What Martha Did Next”, Anne-Marie writes:

“Had Martha known that what she was about to take was 91% pure, she would probably have taken a lot less, in fact I’d go as far as to say that she might still be alive.”

Anne-Marie argues that, under prohibition, it is impossible fully to educate people such as Martha, because there is no way to tell what drugs contain. Prohibition has not stopped risk-taking, but it has made those risks much more dangerous. Anne-Marie suggests that we are failing to protect children such as Martha—that we are letting them down—and that, alongside deterring young people from taking drugs, we need a regulatory model that reduces the risk if drugs do get into the hands of young people such as Martha.

I agree with Anne-Marie. Perhaps many people in the Chamber will not. However, the fact that Martha is not celebrating her 17th birthday today is surely the first of many good reasons to carry out an impact assessment of our drugs laws. We urgently need to know whether prohibition is an obstacle to education about drugs, and whether our children would be better protected by alternatives, such as strict regulation. Despite all the accusations that are thrown at those who are in favour of drug policy reform, the bottom line is that it is not about being pro-drugs, but about saving lives. The only credible way to do that is to know whether our policies are up to the job.

That is especially important because there is powerful evidence that the so-called war on drugs is making things worse. Far from being neutral, in many instances the current model pushes users towards more harmful products, behaviours and environments. Let me give two examples of what I mean. In doing so, it is crucial to distinguish between the suffering that is caused by drugs and that which is caused by drugs policy.

First, the vast majority of drug-related offending happens not because people take drugs, but because of drugs policy. Users are driven to burglary and theft to buy drugs at vastly inflated prices in an unregulated market. There is enormous potential significantly to reduce such crime and its impact on our communities under a different system.

Secondly, on legal highs, according to research into synthetic drugs by Demos and the UK Drug Policy Commission, 40 new substances emerged on to the market in 2010, compared with 24 in the previous year. By 2014, the figure had grown to 80 different synthetic drugs. Professor Les Iversen, the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, recently admitted that drug control legislation is being forced to play “cat and mouse”. Such substances are routinely banned under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but that simply spawns more substances that, in turn, are banned. The legal process cannot keep up.

The Government have published a report today that recommends that all novel synthetic psychoactive substances, or legal highs as they are more widely known, be banned. I appreciate what they are trying to do with that policy, but I think that it is misguided. It fails to appreciate that many legal highs are the products of prohibition. Synthetic cannabis, for example, would not exist if there were a legally regulated supply of real cannabis. Nor does the policy recognise our knowledge that prohibition—in other words, banning things—does not stop people taking drugs, but simply increases the risks.

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the only people the current policy really benefits are the drug lords and crime lords who sell this disgusting stuff to our children? If her policies were realised, it would put those people out of business for good.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the current—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady has been speaking for 15 minutes, so I am sure that we are nearing the end of the opening speech. [Interruption.] I assure her that we are nearing the end of the speech.

[Caroline Lucas]

Of course I am getting near the end, Mr Deputy Speaker. With that in mind, I shall simply agree with the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton).

The current policy is essentially putting users at greater risk by driving the creation of yet more ways to stay one step ahead of the law and by making research into the harms associated with new substances much more difficult.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)]

Many of the new synthetic drugs are sold in shops up and down the country. If we do nothing to control the way in which the shops operate, such drugs will continue to be available. Most of them are sold over the counter and very few are sold illicitly in clubs. Where will the hon. Lady’s reforms lead us in terms of banning such shops from operating?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There are two ways to respond. The motion simply says that we should look at the evidence. I am not saying where that will lead us. On the shops that sell so-called legal highs, we are not talking about an absence of control. On the contrary, we are talking about regulation and control. My argument with the Government’s statement on legal highs is that it assumes that if we ban them and drive them underground, they will go away. They will not. It is likely that they will be even more dangerous and that people will not know what they are taking.

One proposal in Transform’s blueprint for a drugs policy, which I warmly recommend, is a step-by-step process by which we look at how we regulate and control drugs. For example, it might be possible to get hold of them in a licensed pharmacy if people show a certain level of ID. There are all sorts of ways in which we could regulate and control the drugs market. I repeat that this is not about legalising drugs or having a free-for-all, but about bringing regulation and control back into a market that is in the hands of gangs and other people who do not care what is in the substances. They do not care about the purity of a substance; they care only about their profit. I stress again that this is about regulation and control.

Although, sadly, we do not systematically collect and assess data for the purposes of ensuring that the Misuse of Drugs Act is the best way to meet our drugs policy objects, there is a wealth of informative data out there. The evidence that I have seen is enough to persuade me of the need for drugs policy reform. However, I repeat that the motion simply asks for an independent review of the evidence. I therefore hope that those who do not agree with my interpretation of the evidence will still support the motion.

I thank the Minister for Crime Prevention again for his work on the Government’s comparators report. It shows that there is a wealth of evidence from many other countries that we could have a very different drugs policy in this country. In order to protect people in this country in the most effective way possible, it is incumbent on us as a Parliament to look at the comparators report, learn from it and see how we can make our drugs policy more effective.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful contribution of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I welcome her bringing this debate to the House.

I will speak about a harm-reduction approach to drugs policy. I do not hold a moralistic view on the taking of drugs, other than my objection to people supporting one of the most evil worldwide businesses or cartels. It always surprises me that people who object to buying coffee in Starbucks and who refuse to support Amazon are quite happy to support cartels that cause untold misery to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Until such time as we have a change in drugs policy, I hope that people who support the drugs industry will reflect on the wider harms that they, personally, are causing.

Talking of harm reduction, I welcome an approach that says, “Let’s look at the evidence and be driven by the evidence in what we do.” However, there is one piece of evidence on which we should reflect, which is that drug use is falling in this country. According to surveys from the Office for National Statistics, the level of class A drug use among young people—16 to 24-year-olds—has fallen from 9.2% in 1996 to 4.8% in 2012-13. That is a significant drop.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the approach that she is taking. However, we need to be really clear about the evidence that drug use is going down. The only real model that we can see over time is that there was a 32% increase in respect of some of the most serious drugs, heroin and morphine, last year. Cannabis use has been coming down, but that has happened irrespective of the policy context and of whether it has been class B, class C or anything else.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. Cannabis use among 16 to 24-year-olds is now at its lowest level since records began, at around 13.5%. I think the view we sometimes hear that we are losing the war on drugs is factually incorrect, and there are many markers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Like every other Member here today, I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate. It has been a high-quality and wide-ranging debate. We have heard from two Select Committee Chairs. We have talked about prescription drugs, prisons and the international issues that we need to address.

I welcome the international comparators report which was published today. It received a lot of media hype overnight. I found it quite difficult to get a copy of the report until the Home Office provided a link to the Table Office at about 11 am, so I have not had a chance to digest the contents of the report fully. It has been a long time coming and it is a shame that we could not have had it a few days earlier so that we could have reflected on it in full.

I was rather bemused this morning to hear the Minister on Radio 4. I was not quite sure whether he was speaking as the Minister or as a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, as the Home Office later put out a contradictory statement. Perhaps he can clarify whether he is speaking on behalf of the Government today. I know that he has had difficulty in the past in speaking on behalf of the Government, and that he had to absent himself from the khat debate because he did not agree with the Government’s policy on khat.

The report on legal highs has also been published today alongside the international comparators report. Again, we welcome this, but it has been a long time coming. We on the Labour Benches called for the issue to be tackled much earlier; the growing market in legal highs has been allowed to flourish over the past few years. We are pleased to see the report. I pay tribute to Maryon Stewart and the Angelus Foundation, who have pushed the issue of legal highs and the need for legislation to deal with the problems that have developed.

Three key issues on legal highs emerge from the report, on which I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me. First, I hope there will be a comprehensive prevention and awareness campaign on legal highs. Secondly, we need a clear legislative framework to try to disrupt the supply of new psychoactive substances and stop headshops proliferating on our high streets. Thirdly—perhaps this should have been the starting point—we need a proper framework for assessing the scale and the danger of legal highs. We need to know when legal highs enter the UK and what dangers they pose. I hope the Minister may be able to assist with that today.

Of course, we all want to look at the evidence. In the Home Affairs Committee report, one of the first bullet points in the key facts section states:

“England and Wales has almost the lowest recorded level of drug use in the adult population since measurement began in 1996. Individuals reporting use of any drug in the last year fell significantly from 11.1% in 1996 to 8.9% in 2011-12. There was also a substantial fall in the use of cannabis from 9.5% in 1996 to 6.9% in 2011-12.”

Let us consider all the evidence and see what is happening.

I want to focus on treatment and all the comments that have been made today about the situation in Portugal, which is a key part of the international comparators report. Little has been made of the fact that the trends in Britain are very similar to what has happened in Portugal. It is important to remember that the changes in drug laws in Portugal were accompanied by significant investment in drug treatment, as we have had in the United Kingdom. When we examine drug harms and what has had an impact, it is not clear that a change in legislation is the driving force.

[Caroline Lucas]

I want to make sure that there is no risk of complacency creeping into the hon. Lady’s remarks. It is important to know that there were 2,000 drug-related deaths in England and Wales in 2013 and a 32% increase in heroin and morphine-related deaths. The number of deaths involving both legal and illegal drugs last year was at its highest level since 2001. There are different ways in which we can look at the figures, but the bottom line is that we need a review of the evidence. Will she support that?

[Diana Johnson]

I do not want to be considered complacent, but we need to get all the evidence on the table so that we can assess it. There is some merit in looking at what has happened regarding treatment in this country over the past 10 to 12 years. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says that this country is well ahead of comparators. In 2010 60% of opioid users were in treatment. That compares with 12% in the Netherlands and 25% in Sweden, so I am not sure that I agree with the motion that the status quo is failing. Drug-related deaths among the under-30s have halved in a decade, and it has been calculated that getting people into drug treatment has prevented 4.9 million crimes being committed, saving the economy £960 million. This is evidence that we should all consider.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I simply want to thank all hon. Members who have spoken in this incredibly powerful debate. My only regret is that colleagues who perhaps not yet been persuaded of the arguments were not here to hear them; those arguments were made in such a compelling way that we could probably have brought many of those colleagues with us.

Several Members spoke about a feeling of optimism and a sense that the tide is turning. Notwithstanding the slightly less optimistic speech from Labour’s Front Bench spokesperson, I think that is absolutely right. I feel excited about the announcement today that Naloxone will be more widely available. That is incredibly positive and I thank the Minister for that, as well as for his response to the debate as a whole.

We recognise that public opinion on the issue is changing: a poll today showed that 71% of the public think that the war on drugs has failed. Our responsibility now is to make sure that politicians catch up with the public and recognise that we do not need to be afraid of the debate. If we look the evidence in the face, there is an awful lot that we can work with. We can put in place a much more effective drugs policy regime.

I started this debate by referring to Martha, whose 17th birthday it would have been today. Our laws let her down. By failing to review our drugs laws, we would be letting down future Marthas as well. I want to end by paying tribute to her extraordinarily brave, eloquent and tireless mother, Anne-Marie, and to all the other campaigners who are urging all of us here to review and reform our drugs laws. I hope very much that we will show we have listened to them by passing this motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that drug-related harms and the costs to society remain high; further notes that the independent UK Drugs Policy Commission highlighted the fact that Government is spending around £3 billion a year on policies that are often counterproductive; believes that an evidence-based approach is required in order for Parliament and the Government to pursue the most effective drugs policy in the future; welcomes the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its Ninth Report of 2012-13, HC 184, that the Government consider all the alternatives to the UK’s failing drug laws and learn from countries that have adopted a more evidence-based approach; notes that the Government has responded positively to this recommendation and is in the process of conducting an international comparators study to consider the effectiveness of national drug policies adopted by a range of countries; and calls on the Government to conduct an authoritative and independent cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and to publish the results of those studies within the next 12 months.