EU Drugs Strategy: EUC Report

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to say a few words about the report on the EU drugs strategy by Sub-committee F and, in doing so, pay tribute to the effective and experienced leadership of our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay.

We need to be realistic about the competence of the European Union and the objective of its drugs policy. It is not clear from the Government’s response whether they agree that neither of the two main objectives of the 2005-12 strategy, the reduction of demand and supply, has been achieved. According to the independent evaluation by the RAND Corporation, although there have been reductions in demand for cannabis and recently a slight decrease in cocaine consumption, there is little evidence on whether these successes can be attributed to the strategy and its action plans. It goes on to say that if there are trends on the supply side, there is no evidence that they can be attributed to the strategy or its action plans. That does not mean that the 2005-12 strategy was not of some value, but that we need more focused objectives, as has been said already, than the 158 actions in the strategy’s so-called “wish list”. The Government say that while it is necessary to articulate broad ambitions and guiding principles, they should be,

“underpinned by specific, and where possible, measurable objectives”.

The preparation of the next drugs strategy, which has to be ready by the end of 2012, falls on to the agenda of the Cyprus presidency over the next six months. With all respect to Cyprus, the APPG for Drug Policy Reform suggests that the Justice Directorate, which has the responsibility for drug control policy at EU level, should be taking the lead. It would be useful to hear from my noble kinsman the Minister what mechanism there is for the presidency to seek its input, and indeed that of the largest member states where drugs are a huge problem, in formulating the draft.

On the Government’s refusal to sign and ratify the convention on money laundering for the second time of asking, does my noble kinsman have anything to say about the scandal of HSBC’s dealings with Mexican drug barons, revealed in a US Senate report published on Monday, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay? Here, as in the US, financial institutions and their employees face civil and criminal penalties for failing to properly file suspicious activity reports. What steps are being taken to ensure that the SARs regime is not being widely flouted by HSBC here as it obviously was over there? Does he think that this disgraceful conduct reveals a need for tightening EU legislation on money-laundering?

One important recommendation by the committee on which the Government agree, for instance, is that greater use should be made of Europol’s databases. The Government say that they are calling for more voluntary information sharing between member states, but this is an area in which there could be a specific objective, to increase the proportion of information routed through Europol’s liaison bureau which is cross-checked with their central databases. There is no reason why that should not become routine, with specific encouragement, such as the publication of the percentage that is so cross-checked, broken down by member state.

The Government agree that the EU could do far more to reduce the supply of drugs through encouraging producing countries to diversify their agricultural economies away from illegal drugs. The Government quote the success of the UK-led project in Helmand province, Afghanistan, for supplying wheat seed to 160,000 farmers, and they say they are working to make alternative livelihood programmes sustainable for the long term. How can this be done, can my noble kinsman explain, after the UK has withdrawn from Afghanistan? If my noble kinsman says the scheme does not require the British presence, why is it working only in Helmand? Why is this a specifically UK project, when we are talking about an added emphasis in EU development policies? Can my noble kinsman quote any large-scale agricultural diversification projects sponsored by the EU in Latin America, and is there scope for co-operation between the EU and the US in this area which is so clearly of mutual benefit?

As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has already said, one alarming development which has occurred during the present EU strategy is the appearance of an ever-increasing array of new psychoactive substances, the NPSs. The EMCDDA, whose work, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said impressed the committee greatly during our visit to Lisbon, reports that in 2011, 49 NPSs were notified, compared with 41 in 2010 and a mere 24 in 2009. The European Commission says that it will propose stronger EU legislation on these products, which are freely sold on the internet and in clubs, taking into account scientific evidence on the risks that they pose. Mephedrone and BZP, for instance, are identified as potentially harmful, but how can we or the EU satisfactorily assess the effects of substances coming on to the market at such a rate, particularly when some of them may have cumulative or delayed-action consequences for the user? Would my noble friend say if we attended the EU-US meeting in June on new drugs, and what conclusions were reached there?

As an aside, what is the Government’s current thinking on the drug khat? A thoughtful article by Howard Swains in the Independent magazine suggests that banning khat would mean the imprisonment of more Somalis, damaging their job prospects and creating a recruiting ground for al-Shabaab. However, regulating supply and applying health and safety laws to the mafrish where khat is chewed would help both legitimate suppliers and consumers. Probably the UK is the largest market in Europe for this drug and we could pave the way for European regulation, perhaps also for other relatively less harmful drugs as well as khat. The Government responded to the committee's suggestion of exploring alternatives to banning new psychoactive substances—such as regulating them as we do alcohol and tobacco—by saying that they were going to publish an NPS action plan in May. Will the Minister say whether our proposal has been taken up and how the Government action plan dovetails with the Commission's report on the information exchange, risk assessment and control of NPSs, published on 11 July?

As has already been mentioned, the Committee recommended prioritising the evaluation of harm reduction strategies. The Government replied that there must be caution in the absence of more robust and comparable evidence. It would be a mistake to neglect the Portuguese and Czech experience and similarly other member states could benefit from the development of an evaluation framework setting out the evidence base and assessing the value for money of our own 2010 drugs strategy. It should be a matter for discussion whether this is best achieved by promoting a European area network on illicit drugs to improve co-operation in drugs research—as the Government suggest—or perhaps by extending the remit of the EMCDDA. The EMCDDA already reports on drugs research, as for example on the use of supervised injectable heroin treatment for a small group of heroin users formerly thought to be untreatable. One thing is certain and that is that the problem of dangerous drugs is international. The Committee and the Government are agreed on the value of a comprehensive EU drugs strategy and the framework it creates for practical co-operation between member states.

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[Lord Henley]

We will certainly look at the American experience. We are aware that there are a great many more lawyers in America than there are in this country, and that the Americans are keen on making use of lawyers. However, obviously we would want to learn from their experience. While I am on the subject of the ACMD, I should also say to my noble friend Lord Avebury, who asked about khat, that the advisory committee is currently reviewing the harms associated with it. We will not prejudge that advice, but we will look at it in due course.

[Lord Avebury]

I am most grateful to my noble friend. I also mentioned, in the context of the examination of khat, the possibility of applying regulation. The committee looked at regulation although it did not express a firm opinion on it. However, it is another way of tackling harmful drugs, and it may particularly apply to the use of khat. I would be grateful, given that the advisory committee is looking at khat, if it would also examine the possibility of using regulation to control it.

[Lord Henley]

I think that that must be a matter for the advisory committee to decide. I want to make it clear that we will not prejudge its advice. We will look at it when it comes and then make an appropriate decision. I understand that that is likely to be later this year.

I want to try to make progress because the House wishes to get on to the next debate. One of our key priorities for the next iteration of the drug strategy is to ensure that we agree a principle of transparency that would allow greater oversight of the available EU funding streams and the actions they are driving. It is vital that we ensure that EU funding for counternarcotics and EU co-ordination in external third countries is effectively targeted and aligned with overall EU drug strategy priorities. We would like to see concrete actions intended to tackle drugs covering both action to enhance local capability against the drugs trade and alternative development.

The noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Liddle, and others mentioned the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon, which is rather inelegantly known as the EMCDDA. I will refer to it as the European monitoring centre. I was asked what our view is of this body. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said about its valuable work. We accept that it should continue and that we should make increased use of it where possible, and similarly of its early-warning system through the use of intelligence gathering and forensic analysis via Europol and Interpol. This will also help with our collective understanding of the current EU drugs market.

There were those who took the debate further and asked that we look at alternative approaches. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that he was somewhat constrained because he was worried that the Daily Mail might be listening. I looked up at the Gallery and I do not think that anyone from that paper was there at that stage. We fully respect the fact that different ideas and policies will be put forward in the ongoing debate. We believe that policies should be discussed, challenged and reviewed. That is what we are doing in the United Kingdom through our annual review of the drugs strategy that we produced back in 2010, and the development of our evaluation framework. We continue to discuss efforts to tackle the drugs trade with our international partners.

Similarly, within this country, the noble Lord mentioned a conference that my right honourable friend Oliver Letwin will be addressing in November on these matters. My right honourable friend, as a Minister in the Cabinet Office, is also part of the inter-ministerial group on drugs that I chair on behalf of the Home Office. There were those who said that it should not be the Home Office that led on this subject and that this matter should be transferred to the Department of Health. However, we in government think it should cover all the Government but be led by the Home Office. The inter-ministerial group that I chair also has representatives from Health, Education, the Cabinet Office, Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice, Communities and Local Government and, last—one should never say least—Her Majesty’s Treasury. Meetings of the inter-ministerial group are roughly once a month and all those Ministers regularly attend. I think that it is a very fine example of the Government being non-siloised—if I can put it in those terms—and thinking across the board in these matters.

I will say a word or two about Portugal and decriminalisation. Again, we will continue to look at what happens in all countries and we are determined to study the effects of the work they have done in Portugal. There is an excellent policy review by the EMCDDA of what Portugal is doing, which I commend to noble Lords. We will look at what it does and make our decisions in due course. Lastly on the subject of decriminalisation, I do not think that this is the time or place to go on to that wider subject. However, the legal framework that we have in this country—the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—allows the criminal justice system some flexibility to deal with the best way to reduce reoffending and gives both the police and the judiciary discretion to take into account all the circumstances of the offence, such as when it involves possession of a relatively small amount of some drug.

As noble Lords will be aware, government officials are closely involved in the development of the new EU drugs strategy. It is currently on course to be adopted at the Justice and Home Affairs Council in December. I can assure the noble Lord and his committee that officials from the Home Office will keep the committee informed of progress with the new document as appropriate.