Drugs Policy

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Grahame Morris]

It is really important that policy be evidence-based. With all due respect to the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), many of whose concerns I share, shooting galleries do exist. We might not like it, but they exist, unauthorised and under no medical supervision, in our communities, in private dwellings, in derelict properties, in residential areas, near schools and behind shops. [Interruption.]

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division in the House. I shall suspend the sitting for 15 minutes if there is one vote, or 25 minutes if there are two. We shall resume as soon as hon. Members return and Grahame Morris is in his place.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. I now call Jim Shannon, but seven Members still wish to speak before I call the Front-Bench speakers at 3.54 pm. Could we please have restraint from hon. Members, so that we can hear from as many of those who put their name forward to speak as possible?

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[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing this debate, and I am sympathetic to many of the points he made. He rightly highlighted the links between the use of drugs, drug dependency and deprivation, the challenges that many people who are dependent on drugs face, such as in housing and employment, and the fact that the current criminal justice approach does not work as we would like. We should help people with drug dependency to access the appropriate health and care support they may need, and we must think seriously about whether the current prohibition on drugs is the right way forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) made a factual point about naloxone and drug use. The policy is widely used in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and all over the world. He might be interested to read a 2017 review paper by McDonald, Campbell and Strang, entitled “Twenty years of take-home naloxone for the prevention of overdose deaths from heroin and other opioids—Conception and maturation”. That paper effectively concludes that take-home naloxone coverage is insufficient—that may chime with something my hon. Friend said—and that greater public investment in such schemes is necessary if we want them to succeed. Opioid deaths and their causes are multifactorial, and a considerable body of international evidence suggests that if naloxone is given to people who are at risk of an overdose, it can save lives; many review and study papers indicate that. I believe it is a step in the right direction for the Scottish Government to confront that issue and to say that there is a good body of evidence, but unfortunately dealing with opioid deaths is not as simple as just handing out naloxone, which we know is in itself an effective measure.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made the case against the end of prohibition on drugs. If we look at the wider public health issue, it is fair to say that if something is decriminalised or legalised, more people may well use that substance because it could be seen as something that is okay or acceptable to use, but I do not think anyone in this debate is suggesting that if there was a broader approach to the decriminalisation or legalisation of drugs, there would not be a public health campaign, just as there is with legal drugs such as alcohol and nicotine, to suggest that there are adverse health outcomes associated with use.

Many substances that are classified class C or even class A have a lower public health burden than alcohol—for example, MDMA or ecstasy. Alcohol, the legal drug that many people—not me—in Parliament and elsewhere consume, is the substance that causes the biggest public health burden. We must be realistic and recognise that if we move to a position where people are able to make a more informed choice about whether they want to consume drugs in the future, that informed choice involves telling people that taking certain substances has consequences, as we do with alcohol and cigarettes today.

On the current approach to drugs, I would like the Minister to pick up on a couple of points. First, there is the challenge of improving the care that we provide for people who are dependent on drugs. This is not an issue for this Minister, but it may be a conversation to be had with the Department of Health and Social Care. The current commissioning landscape in England for drug and alcohol services is fragmented and completely divorced from mental health. We have to recognise that mistake, which we made in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. That needs to be addressed if we want to improve the quality of care available to people who are dependent on opioids in particular, as well as alcohol or any other substance.

It is important to recognise that improving care for people who are dependent on substances is about taking a holistic approach. It is about law enforcement working together with healthcare, housing and social care, and about finding employment and retraining solutions for people. The way existing law is framed, alongside the criminal justice prism through which drug laws are seen and enforced, often drives a wedge between different agencies, preventing them from working together effectively for the benefit of people who are dependent on illicit or street drugs. I hope the Minister can look at that point. Many opioid users are struggling to get treatment. In recent years, there has been a rising trend in the number of opioid deaths, yet the number of people with addiction to heroin and opioids accessing treatment has fallen in the last 10 years or so. There is a problem here that needs to be addressed.

We often talk about being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime—I think a former Prime Minister said that, and it is something we can all agree with. What good treatment for people affected by substance misuse is not about is being tough on crime and being tough on addicts. That does not work, it has not worked, and it is driving a wedge between the health system and the people it is trying to support. I hope that we can recognise in our broader discussions about prohibition that the current policies are a barrier to people with drug dependence receiving the care and support that they need.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

I am keen to make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak. I suggest that people have a self-imposed speaking time of three minutes. That will leave a little less time for the Front-Benchers, but I would like to make sure that everyone gets the chance to air their view. I call Jeff Smith.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I will be as brief as possible, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing this debate and on his long and strong advocacy on these issues. I am tempted to say only that I agree with everything that he said, because I do, but I have a few brief comments to add.

First, I want to say how disappointing it is to see the Minister and the shadow Minister in their places today, not because I have anything against either of them personally, but because I hope that one day we will have a debate on drug policy where a Health Minister and shadow Health Minister answer the debate. For too long, we have treated drug policy as a Home Office and criminal issue rather than the health issue that it should be.

My starting premise is that we will never stop people wanting to take drugs. Humans have taken psychoactive substances for thousands of years. Our brains like them—it is not our fault; they just do. If we are honest, people take drugs because, often, they are enjoyable, whether it is alcohol or one of the illegal drugs. Most people enjoy taking them. Most people take them without problems most of the time. Sometimes, however, use becomes problematic, whether it be of alcohol or illegal drugs. We do not tackle problematic alcohol use by banning alcohol. That would be absurd, so why is it any less absurd that we ban drugs that cause problems when used wrongly? We need to make a distinction between problematic use and recreational use that causes no harm. We have a drug policy that is not working, as has already been said.

Is the clock counting down the time for my speech?

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

It is counting up.

[Jeff Smith]

It is counting up. Have I really had all that time? I cannot quite believe how long I have been speaking for.

Not only does our drug policy not work, but it causes problems, not least through unnecessary criminalisation. In 2017, nearly 38,000 people were unnecessarily criminalised, which leads to poorer life chances and a cycle of prison. Then there is the cost: if we include all the costs of policing, healthcare, the judiciary and so on, it costs £10.7 billion to deal with illegal drug use. The policy is not working. Drug supply is in the hands of organised criminal gangs and that leads to an arms race in violence, trafficking and organised crime. Then there is the stigma, which has already been referred to, which prevents people from seeking treatment.

We need a change. We need to base our drug policy on the evidence of what works. As the Home Office itself found, there is no evidence that tough law enforcement reduces drug use. Change will not to be easy and I will not pretend otherwise; we have had a war on drugs for 50 years and it is ingrained in the political narrative. For too long, though, we have treated this problem the wrong way. For too long, politicians have been part of the problem. It is time that politicians started being part of the solution.