Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Temporary Class Drug) (NO. 2) order 2015

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

Let me start by thanking the Minister for setting out so clearly the purpose of the order before us. I have been coming along to Committees considering orders like this for five years now, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him and his colleagues for the courtesy they have shown me over those five years by providing information and for the support that officials have given me when I have sought further information. As we live in uncertain times, I am not sure whether I will be speaking from this exact position again, so I wanted to put on record my thanks for that support from the Minister.

[Mike Penning]

I do not want to delay the Committee, but I thank the shadow Minister very much for her comments. I hope she will remain in place, because this issue is something she is passionate about, and that passion is something that all of us who come to this House should have. If she does not remain in place, I am sure that, whether from the Back Benches or wherever else she is, she will continue to get that support from my Department on the work she does in this area.

[Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the Minister. I will certainly be taking an enormous amount of interest, in whatever capacity, to the Bill that said he would be introducing before Christmas.

The Opposition welcome the order before us. I do not wish to delay the Committee too long, but I want to ask some questions. This is the latest in a long line of statutory instruments that I have debated over the past five years, as the Government have struggled to keep pace with the explosion of new psychoactive substances. As with previous orders, we are today discussing a ban for a group of related compounds. What is unusual about today’s order is that it introduces only a temporary ban. The Government promised that the introduction of temporary bans would transform the UK’s response to new psychoactive substances. In fact, the power has been used only four times, while hundreds of new psychoactive substances have emerged on the UK market.

I want to emphasise, as the Minister did, the dangers of these drugs. I thoroughly support what he said about the result of taking these particular substances. It is important to highlight the review that was conducted by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. I am grateful for the work it does to assist us in making our decisions.

The types of dangers we are discussing today are not dissimilar to those associated with other new psychoactive substances that we have been discussing over the previous few years: a lack of control, a danger of overdosing, chest pain, paranoia and hypertension. However, it is particularly worrying to see reports that this drug is highly addictive, as the Minister said, with users frequently needing to re-dose, often with needles. Clearly this suggests that it poses a particular public health threat. It is of course tragic that the drug has been linked with a death, as set out in the accompanying documents.

I want to make three short points. First, I want to highlight the delays in taking action against these drugs. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, ethylphenidate was first identified in the UK in 2011. The EMCDDA’s partner organisation in the UK is the National Poisons Information Service. That suggests that the drug was detected in hospital admissions as far back in 2011. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report said that ethylphenidate was identified by surveys of online new psychoactive substances stores back in 2011, and it was first linked with a drugs death in the UK in 2013. I know that the Minister apologised for the delay in getting the order before us, but I wonder why it has taken so long to get to this point. Even if we take it from 2013, that is still two years.

There appear to have been delays at every stage of the process. Although the drug was first identified in the UK in 2011, it was not until 2014 that it was included in the UK’s forensic early warning system report. It then took a further year for the ACMD to assess the evidence and six months from the ACMD making a recommendation to Parliament discussing a temporary ban. Denmark, Austria, Germany, Hungary, the US, Australia, Sweden, Turkey, Portugal and even Jersey have already acted to ban the drug. Given that the UK has the world’s second largest legal highs market, can the Minister explain why he thinks it has taken so long to get to this point and why we appear to be so far behind those other countries?

The Minister referred to the new Psychoactive Substances Bill, which the Opposition fully support and have called for over a long period. It is coming to the House of Commons shortly. The Bill should address the issue of the supply of these drugs while their dangers are being evaluated. However, it will not address the serious shortage of capacity in the evaluation process. The Government need to consider that urgently. I would welcome the Minister’s view on the capacity of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to carry out its functions.

Secondly, I want to ask the Minister about analogue bans—a change in the drugs laws introduced in the last five years, supposedly to address the spread of new psychoactive substances. I would like to know why an analogue ban, covering all the derivatives of methylphenidate, was not introduced in 2012 when the Government did ban other substances, most notably desoxypipradrol. All the other substances that we are discussing today are linked to methylphenidate. Why was an analogue ban that would have stopped the spread of these new substances not pursued in 2012?

Finally, I turn to education and public awareness. The Government’s efforts to control the supply of these drugs have been slow and I am concerned about the need to inform the public about the harms of legal highs. Sadly, people taking these drugs still think “legal” means safe. They are often taken in by heavy and misleading advertising from online and high-street head shops. Take, for example, the drugs we are discussing today. They are sold under generic street names such as “Gogaine” and “Burst”. Previously, those names referred to other substances; as those were banned, the component substances were changed. The unsuspecting user does not know that. We have to address that huge lack of understanding among young people, who are often tempted to take these drugs.

In its report on drugs, the Home Affairs Committee said that prevention and education were given the least attention within the Government’s drugs strategy. The expert panel on legal highs assembled by the Government last year, or early this year, called for a comprehensive strategy to increase public understanding. We need a clear national campaign and to consider again the issue of drugs education in schools. Public Health England should also put forward its views about how to tackle the issue.

There has not really been a proper attempt to engage with young people through social media, which are so important these days. In his response, the Minister will no doubt talk to me about the “Frank” website—all Ministers over the past five years have. Although that has its place, I do not think it is providing the full answer to how we educate young people on these issues. The Labour-led Welsh Government are going for a broader and more inclusive response to new psychoactive substances, looking at health and education messaging. I hope the Minister will be willing to consider the Welsh model and what can be learned from it. Finally, what work is being done to co-ordinate cross-departmental work on NPS as well as work with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments?

I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on those three points. As I said at the beginning, the Opposition fully support the order.