Drug Addiction

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Craig Mackinlay]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That has been the outcome. I am not particularly keen on seeing youngsters receive a criminal record for the use of drugs. There is perhaps another way, such as a non-recordable early intervention, rather than a criminal record that could be with them for life and weigh seriously against their potential job opportunities for the future. We are seeing police guidelines saying that no arrests should be made for possession. I am worried that we are seeing a normalisation of drug use. If youngsters feel that that is the new norm, there will be very little deterrent and they will feel that taking cannabis is acceptable. Inquiries I have made for my report have shown that youngsters still feel that they are deterred from going into using cannabis by the threat of criminal sanction.

I will come to my conclusion, which I hope will wrap a few things up. I am particularly fearful that this side of the Atlantic will face a potential onslaught of fentanyl and other artificial opioid derivatives, and I feel the Government need to be prepared for that. Action to rehabilitate that current core of class A drug users now will save their lives in the future, should fentanyl become more of a norm on our streets. I feel that we should be upping our game in three strands of work: education in schools, colleges and universities.

I would like to see significantly increased sentences for drug supply. Under current sentencing guidelines, the maximum sentence for the category A offence of suppling 5 kg-plus of class A drugs, which is right at the high end of drug supply, is 16 years, compared with 35 years for attempted murder. As we cope, or potentially have to cope, with fentanyl and similar lethal derivatives, we should perhaps give some thought to creating a new class—class AA—for these truly lethal drugs.

But to me, rehabilitation is the key, and I would not want to see services or that type of expenditure downgraded, because of the £2.50 saving for every £1 of investment. I would like residential rehabilitation to be the norm. We could call them prisons, if hon. Members would like, but they would be prisons or centres with one primary focus, and I think the judiciary would welcome being able to make that choice. They would be abstinence-based rehabilitation centres; people would go in on drugs and come out clean.

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

I am conscious that we do not have unlimited time, so I would be grateful if hon. Members kept their remarks brief, so that I can allow time at the end for the Minister and the Opposition Front Benchers to speak and, if possible, call everyone who wishes to speak.

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[Crispin Blunt]

Forgive me; I am short of time.

I come to this debate from the criminal justice perspective, having seen for myself as Minister for Prisons and Criminal Justice the time and costs incurred by the police, courts, prisons and probation service in managing the effects of drug-related crime. My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet also drew attention to the problems of cannabis, particularly street cannabis, which, with its high levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is more potent and liable to cause schizophrenia in long-term users.

However, those looking to use cannabis recreationally often have little to choose from and have no idea what their cannabis, acquired on the street from drug dealers, has in it. Legalisation and regulation would allow consumers to access less harmful forms of cannabis with lower levels of THC and higher levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, giving the desired high, in just the same way as drug users of tobacco and alcohol can be assured of the regulated quality and provenance of their products, together with the health warnings and all the necessary restrictions on advertising and sales that a properly regulated market can deliver.

Licensing and regulation proportionate to the risks of each type of drug and signposting users to services when they get into trouble would be the right place for public policy if we followed the evidence of what works. At a stroke it would deliver the massive good of eliminating the huge costs associated with criminal possession and supply. By permitting a legal but regulated market, we would decouple hundreds of millions of consumers around the world—millions in the UK alone—from funding and facilitating a world of criminality.

Just as prohibition in 1920s America provided a financial basis for organised crime to flourish in American cities, so our policy of prohibition has gifted an industry worth half a trillion dollars a year to serious and organised criminals producing and supplying untested substances. Their interest is hardly the health of their consumers, but far more to produce the addiction that will sustain a vastly lucrative business model.

Alongside the addiction, we then have to deal with the awful consequences of drug market violence as gangs and dealers vie for control of the trade, quite apart from the enormous amount of the lower-level criminality of burglary and other acquisitive crimes as addicts seek to fund their addiction. As well as keeping criminals, many of them young people, out of drug supply, licensing and regulation allows us to tackle the health-related harms associated with drugs and drug addiction that my hon. Friend was right to draw attention to. Criminalisation means that users are hidden from health practitioners, and there is a lack of guidance about how to find and access services. Taxation of sales by licensed retailers would pay for better prevention, treatment and public health education, available at the point of purchase—a dispensing pharmacist, for instance.

Colorado has raised half a billion dollars in state taxes and fees since it licensed recreational cannabis in 2014. The right hon. Member for North Norfolk referred to the the Home Office evaluation of its own drug strategy, which states:

“There is, in general, a lack of robust evidence as to whether capture and punishment serves as a deterrent for drug use”.

If we translate that out of bureaucratese, that means we know current policy does not work. Since we have been fighting the war on drugs for more than half a century, it might now be an idea to examine the evidence. So I say to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet, instead of doubling down on a failing policy and demanding yet more higher sentences for particular parts of the supply chain—in the example he gave, the failing policy has led to the highest level of opioid drug deaths since records began—we should learn from decriminalisation and public health approaches in other countries.

In Portugal, for example, where the possession of small amounts of drugs has been decriminalised since 2001, a step well short of licensing and regulation, usage rates are among the lowest in Europe, and drug-related pathologies, such as blood-borne viruses and deaths due to misuse, have decreased dramatically. Compare the drug mortality rate of 5.8 per million in Portugal with Scotland, where it is 247 per million. The Portuguese state offers treatment programmes without dragging users through the criminal justice system, where it becomes harder to manage addiction and abuse. I can tell my hon. Friend, drawing on knowledge of the effort to establish drug-free wings in prisons, that it is not easy to do. I accept that it is a perfectly sound policy objective, but do not think for a minute that there is a magic wand to deliver a part of the prison system that will be proof against drugs getting in.

In the criminal justice system, as I can testify from my own experience, it is hard to manage addiction and abuse. The reshaping of our drugs policies should be informed by the growing body of evidence that will come in from the legalisation of cannabis sales in several US states and, from next July, in Canada. We will be able to learn, too, from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and others with drug consumption rooms, an example of the kind of regulation we could deliver around heroin consumption in supervised, safer environments where, as the right hon. Member for North Norfolk said, no one has ever died of an overdose. So we must listen to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which seeks a balanced, evidence-based approach. The UK could have a royal commission to make evidence-based policy recommendations free of politicians’ trite response, “Drugs are bad; they must be banned.” That can give us a route to reframing the debate on drugs and finding evidence-based policy approaches that will truly reduce the costs of addiction, both financial and human.

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Two hon. Members have indicated a wish to speak and I should like both to get in, but if they are to do so each needs to speak for no more than four and a half minutes.

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[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Drug-related deaths are a particular problem in Scotland, as the hon. Gentleman has outlined, including in my constituency, where they are rapidly increasing—at a faster rate than in England and Wales. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Scottish Government need to get serious about addressing problems in NHS Scotland, such as the staff shortages in Angus, and the problems that Police Scotland faces?

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady is making an intervention, not a speech, and I should be grateful if the hon. Member for Inverclyde would respond to it briefly.

[Ronnie Cowan]

I shall cover that point right now: Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell has announced a refreshing of Scotland’s drugs strategy. We will not be complacent about what we have achieved, and we will continue to take an evidence-based approach, and to improve what we are doing in Scotland. We have been working on the seek, keep and treat framework, a joint initiative between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Drugs Forum, which will examine the operational implications of engaging with older drug users and how to encourage them into services and keep them in treatment.

For many people it is heroin, cocaine or cannabis that are classified as drugs; but we must not ignore alcohol. Alcohol addiction is one of the most damaging forms of drug addiction.

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. Is the hon. Gentleman coming to the end of his remarks? Perhaps he can give his last sentence; otherwise the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) will not be able to make a speech.

[Ronnie Cowan]

Absolutely, Mr Gapes.

In conclusion, if we spend money to address addiction problems as a health issue, that will not only bring about better results, but will prove to be less expensive than our current strategy, which criminalises and stigmatises people with addiction problems.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. The Front-Bench speakers have half an hour between them, and I would be grateful if they would allow the Minister at least 10 minutes in which to make his remarks.

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[Mrs Hodgson]

We could always take over in government.

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Craig Mackinlay]

I thank right hon. and hon. Members very much for their contributions this afternoon—obviously, it is a split debate and a split decision. I will put just one thing on the record now, if I may. We tend to make dangerous things illegal. When firearms are used to commit dreadful offences in the US—

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).