Proscribed Psychedelic Drugs

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Ronnie Cowan

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt]

The cost is enormous if one considers that there are 1.2 million people suffering with depression and the number of those people who go on to commit suicide who could be treated. Approximately one third of armed servicemen who have come back from active service in Afghanistan and Iraq are beyond treatment for the trauma they have sustained. Of all people, to whom does the state owe a debt? The cost of this issue is enormous.

How did we get into this position? There was 20 years of documented medical research prior to the scientific blackout that followed the stringent terms of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. How did this awareness of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics not weigh in the balance to avoid the situation we are in today, where they are so tightly controlled that even researchers at world-class UK universities struggle to access them for research purposes? It is an unhappy accident of history that Government regulation of controlled drugs in the 1970s has impacted the public in ways that were completely unforeseen.

These extremely safe drugs are in the most stringently controlled class and schedule, based not on any historical or contemporary assessment of their toxicity or dangers, but simply because there were no submissions made to British or American regulators of medical products containing psilocybin before the instatement of the UN single convention through the UK’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. They were therefore assumed to be worthless for medicine. The historical use of cocaine and heroin in medicine prior to 1971 accounts for why those drugs, with far higher dangers and awful potential for abuse, reside in a lower schedule than the much more benign psilocybin and its fellow psychedelics.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are in danger of taking psilocybin into the same arena as medical cannabis, where the medical profession blames politicians and politicians blame the medical profession, and rather than all looking for obstacles, we should be looking for constructive solutions?

[Crispin Blunt]

I have learned so much with the hon. Gentleman over the last five years, as well as with the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who has joined this debate with personal testimony and the most enormous strength; I know that she has had conversations with the Minister, and I thank him for making time for these conversations and for learning.

It is the Minister to whom, inevitably, we now look for positive leadership in this space. That is why I do not want to push him this evening. I could have spoken for five minutes and then left him swinging on the hook, where we could beat him all around the Chamber trying to defend the indefensible of how we got into this position, but I do not want to do that. I want this debate to be a positive contribution, to lay out the challenge of why we are having to respond in this way and to give the Minister the room for manoeuvre to come forward with positive answers about all the opportunities of this policy.

Drugs Policy

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Ronnie Cowan

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan]

I absolutely agree. If we could see the results from the money being spent on the criminal justice system, I would back off and say, “Well, it is working”, but it clearly is not. To extend the hon. Lady’s point, every £1 spent on early intervention saves £7 in the criminal justice system further down the line. Even if someone does not give a damn about these people, it makes good financial sense to step in anyway and get early intervention.

Peter Bleksley is not alone. A host of personal testimony has been gathered by the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. I will offer four more examples from these experts. Patrick Hennessey, a British Army officer in the Grenadier Guards who served in Afghanistan, said:

“In Afghanistan I fought on one ‘front-line’ of the so-called ‘war on drugs’ and in Hackney I live side-by-side with the other and it’s obviously failing at either end. If real generals pursued an actual war like generations of politicians have pursued this farce they’d be court-martialled and sent to prison.”

Paul Whitehouse, chief constable, said:

“Far from making communities safer, current drug laws have the unintended consequence of placing barriers between the police and often vulnerable individuals.”

Graham Seaby, a former detective superintendent in the international and organised crime branch of New Scotland Yard, said:

“The drug problem will continue and escalate if governments fail to recognise that the only way forward is to move towards nuanced regulatory models, thus removing the profit from criminals, and the motivation for their involvement.”

Francis Wilkinson, chief constable, said:

“The single greatest crime reduction measure the world could take would be to regulate the supply of cannabis, cocaine and heroin.”

Neil Woods, 14 years an undercover drugs cop, would say exactly the same things. Ron Hogg and Arfon Jones, both police and crime commissioners, say that drugs must be a health issue, not a criminal justice one.

Every time we lock up a criminal gang or announce to the media that we have seized a large quantity of drugs with a street value of so many millions, what they do not say is that that supply has been disrupted for an hour or so. Another gang will step into their shoes and maintain distribution. Often those takeovers involve a spate of violence, and such networks are always maintained by violence and the threat of violence. The fact is that after 30 years of locking people up, a bag of cocaine that cost £10 in 1980 will cost £10 today for the same weight. However, because cocaine is so plentiful, it is purer in the UK today than it has ever been. The damage being inflicted on people and communities will continue to increase if all we do is crack down on the criminal fraternity and those ensnared in problematic drug use. We can lock people up for longer, but it does not improve their situation one iota; in fact, it makes it worse. Will the Minister meet and listen to members of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership?

In July 2017 the UK Government published their drug strategy and announced that they would appoint a recovery champion, whose role was defined as someone who would

“be responsible for driving and supporting collaboration between local authorities, public employment services, housing providers and criminal justice partners, ensuring that these critical public services are able to contribute fully towards securing effective outcomes for individuals suffering drug dependence.”

Fifteen months later, there is still nobody in the role, so nobody is co-ordinating those aspects of the support and recovery programme. I find myself wondering whether there is a UK Government harm reduction recovery programme. When will the Minister appoint a recovery champion?

As legislators, we have a choice. We can change the law. In doing so, we can address the harm that drugs do. Before that, we have to take a constructive approach to our drugs policy. We need to accept that 90% of people who use recreational drugs do not live chaotic lives. We must acknowledge that of the 10% of users who become problematic users, the majority have suffered physical, psychological or sexual abuse. We must acknowledge that problematic use is higher in areas of social deprivation. We must accept responsibility for trying to find solutions and acknowledge our failures. We need to help people with problematic drug use through harm reduction, treatment and wraparound support. Criminalising users does not deal with the underlying issues that lead to drug use; it only makes things worse.

We should have a network of safe drug consumption rooms throughout the UK. They have proved to be a success in Switzerland, Canada, Spain and a growing number of other countries. We must be prepared to learn from other countries’ experiences. The emergency services should carry naloxone and be trained in its use. Will the Minister reconsider legalising safe drug consumption rooms and ensure that naloxone is provided for members of the emergency services? Most importantly, UK drugs policy should be a health issue, not a criminal justice one. Alternatively, we can continue to criminalise users and drive them into the hands of unscrupulous dealers, while ignoring the atmosphere of fear that they live in. All we do is marginalise, stigmatise and ostracise them.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has just moved on from the subject of drug consumption rooms, but did he note that after his last debate on drug consumption rooms the International Narcotics Control Board produced a report effectively endorsing them. That came from the body responsible for the international enforcement of the relevant drugs conventions, which I know he and I think are outdated and dangerous, frankly, in the global consequences they deliver on drugs policy. If even the INCB is in that place, I hope our Government will take some notice.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I noticed a couple of things after that debate. In it, the Minister denied that Canada had kept its drug consumption rooms open because they are effective. She made a statement that the Canadian Supreme Court had ordered them to stay open. On the back of that, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy wrote a five-page letter to the Minister and I, detailing how the DCRs are working effectively in Canada and why they have been kept open. They described her statement as

“neither factually nor legally accurate.”

We have lost the war on drugs. Our drugs policy saw to that. We need to change our mindset and ensure that we are in a position to win the peace. Finally, when we see a problematic drug user, we are watching a person drowning. We should throw them a lifebelt, not push their heads further under the water.