Drugs

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for giving us the opportunity to fully explore the important issues raised by the reports of the all-party parliamentary group and the Home Affairs Select Committee. I take this opportunity to add my warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, and congratulate her on her maiden speech. I look forward to her further contributions in the House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the debate has, not surprisingly, been excellent and full of expertise. It has posed many interesting and challenging issues. It has not only given us a variety of views but shown the breadth of expertise and experience that we have in the House on this subject.

As noble Lords may be aware, I, too, have had a long-term interest in drugs policy and service provision, from setting up and managing day care and rehabilitation services in the late 1980s, which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, mentioned, to serving on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the board of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. More recently, my work on a cross-departmental review of drug treatment in prisons resulted in the publication of the Patel report.

From my experience of carrying out this national review, I believe that our overriding concern must be to have a drugs policy that supports some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and their families—a policy that is evidence based and listens to the views of users and carers; a policy that is adaptable and able to meet new challenges, including new drugs as they emerge; and a policy that is sustainable in the long term. To do this, we clearly need to learn from quality research, including the experiences and evaluations of different approaches from other countries. In fact, in their response to the report of the all-party parliamentary group, the Government state this explicitly. They say that,

“we must continue to listen and learn from emerging trends, new evidence and international comparators”.

However, I ask the Minister what steps the Government are actually taking to ensure that we do not spend several years doing this when there is enough clear evidence to act now, such as that from Portugal’s alternative community-based treatment and diversion approach.

Of course, there are new risks to which we must urgently attend, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned. I am speaking about risks posed by the rapid changes in drug manufacture, the new psychoactive substances and so-called club drugs. While temporary drug control orders are to be welcomed as a helpful step in dealing with these new threats, they are not sufficient. As I understand it, the Government have used three temporary banning orders in total, despite the fact that there are well over 100 legal highs out there and they are coming in at a rate of more than 70 a year. In fact, in the last year alone, 73 new substances came on to the British market and are now freely available from 690 online shops. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, highlighted the pros and cons of the internet market. In addition, the Angelus Foundation thinks that there could be up to 300 head shops selling these substances on UK high streets. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is monitoring 280 new substances across Europe.

Against this disturbing background, Les Iversen, chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, has said that the ACMD has the capacity to review only about four legal highs a year. I believe that it has to carry out a review even for a temporary banning order. I would therefore like to understand more about the Government’s rejection of the all-party parliamentary group’s key recommendation regarding these orders. Perhaps the Minister can explain the thinking behind not making these orders permanent in a way that does not, as the all-party group recommends, add to the criminalisation of young people.

On the question of decriminalisation, which many noble Lords have mentioned, and the issue of whether we have a punishment-led or treatment-led approach to drug problems, I have to say that all Governments, my own included, sometimes fail to make the right decisions based on evidence. This is due to the pressures that build up from public debate, which is itself often ill informed as a result of exaggeration in the media and cries that the Government of the day are somehow being soft on drugs if they give way to the advice of the experts. Let us be clear about this: the evidence supports treatment rather than criminalisation and punishment. The recent experience in Portugal on using drug treatment panels rather than the traditional criminal justice system supports this. We have also recently seen a complete reversal of direction in some US states, which have legislated to legalise marijuana use, as my noble friend Lord Judd said.

It is therefore disappointing that the Government,

“does not believe there is a case for fundamentally re-thinking the UK’s approach to drugs”.

My noble friend Lord Howarth also used that quote. I strongly urge the Government to ensure that our current drug policy is based on research and evidence, rather than the ideological and moral opinions of media commentators. It is not appropriate in such a dynamic and ever changing situation as that presented by drugs issues to have a blanket ban on fundamentally reviewing any policy. Surely our policy development and implementation must respond to change and, in particular, the evidence.

The first treatment that a drug user receives must be about stabilising the chaos in their lives; if that means something other than abstinence, so be it. Arguments around whether there should be harm minimisation or an abstinence-based approach are, at best, divisive or completely miss the point. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, highlighted that issue in relation to needle exchange schemes. Abstinence is not about telling all addicts that the only way to move forward is to stop suddenly; it is about providing the right range of treatment options at the right time.

The previous Labour Government invested significantly in drug treatment and revolutionised its provision, with significant results. For example, the waiting time for treatment was cut by more than half, far fewer people dropped out of treatment and outcomes were greatly improved. Recent government rhetoric appears to have moved away from creating a constructive approach and providing a choice of treatments to drug users, to focusing on and ensuring that offenders are punished and drug users are effectively pressured to become abstinent.

At the same time we are seeing major changes in the way that the finances for drug treatment are being distributed and managed. The previous Labour Government had ring-fenced these moneys, but this is no longer the case after the system has been devolved to health and well-being boards, which gives me some cause for concern. I ask the Minister to provide some reassurance that the policy is not being driven by a concern to command public confidence, rather than providing appropriate and evidence-based treatment options with a robust mechanism for protecting the funds for this treatment.

What I find frustrating is that, although we in the drugs sector are fortunate to have a relatively good evidence base on what works and what is cost-effective—research has concluded that for every £1 spent on young people’s treatment services, there is a return of up to almost £2 over a two-year period and £8 over the longer term—young people’s programmes are generally not supported by evidence, and programmes such as DARE, which have been shown to be ineffective, are still being used.

The UK Drug Policy Commission noted that UK Governments have invested little in independent evaluations of the impact of their drug reforms and policies, particularly around the criminal justice system. A number of well evidenced programmes, such as those involving the use of naloxone, have not been implemented, as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, said. Can the Minister provide an explanation as to why these programmes have not been implemented?

Perhaps I may make a plea that we do not forget the voices of users and carers in this debate. After all, it is those people most affected not only by drug problems but by our national policies and treatment approaches who suffer the most. When I was taking part in the review of prison drug treatment services, all 22 of us on the committee were anxious to hear the voices of users, but no one thought that it would happen. In a five-week period, we consulted user groups across the country who had talked to offenders, ex-offenders and drug users to get feedback for the report. We expected 50 people to respond in that time; 500 users, including current and ex-offenders, came forward and gave us some amazing evidence. It is really important that we do not put that evidence to one side.

Finally, after listening to all the many excellent contributions, I suggest that the way forward on these complex and challenging issues is to establish a cross-party group to review drug policy—a group that examines all the evidence carefully, listens to the voices of users and carers, and carefully develops an effective drug policy. Maybe the Minister and I could set this in motion today. I am sure that there are a number of people here in the Chamber who would be prepared to contribute their time and expertise to it. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and, again, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on pursuing these critical issues.