Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords]

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

We have also tabled amendment 13. The Scottish National party has welcomed the Government’s move towards criminalising supply and not necessarily criminalising possession, but we have tabled the amendment to try to prevent the counterproductive criminalisation of young people who purchase a psychoactive substance together, with one of them placing the order using money from the wider group. At that moment, that individual would be at risk of being criminalised for supplying a psychoactive substance. However, the effects on public health—and indeed on the group members’ finances—are indistinguishable from the effects had they all purchased the substance individually.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I am sure that the hon. Lady knows that the situation she has just described in which youths place an order with a dealer and then distribute the substance among their friends is entirely consistent with the law as set out in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The message is that if you buy the drug and then distribute it, you are a supplier in the eyes of the law. I would be interested to know why she thinks there should be a distinction between these substances and the more serious drugs that are dealt with under the 1971 Act. Surely we are still trying to achieve the same aim: to stop the supply of harmful substances.

[Anne McLaughlin]

My understanding was that we were trying not to mirror the Misuse of Drugs Act. We have moved on, and this Bill is not about criminalising individuals for possession, as they can be under the Act. The Bill does not have to mirror the Act exactly. The key issue is the effect that criminalising a young person for a foolish mistake can have on their life chances. Drugs blight enough lives already—that is certainly the case in my constituency—and we do not need to penalise someone who is acting on behalf of his or her peer group, a small group of friends, without any financial motive. These young people are not drug suppliers. Obviously, we might question the sense of their decision to buy drugs, but it should not be a criminal offence. A young person could be pressurised by their peer group to purchase these substances, and they might do so in order to gain the recognition of their peers, but if they were caught they could end up with a substantial criminal conviction.

[Victoria Atkins]

Surely the point is to introduce clarity to the young people that the hon. Lady is describing. Ecstasy is a class A drug, and if a young person buys it, they risk going to prison for a very long time if they are prosecuted and convicted. If a young person buys one of these new psychoactive substances that is minimally different from MDMA, and the dealers get round the problem by saying that it is just a little bit different from ecstasy and therefore does not fall under the 1971 Act, that young person could be placed in a very difficult position. They would have to be a scientist to know the difference between the two substances. My question is: should we not be encouraging clarity to differentiate between those drugs, to enable young people to know that they should not be buying those substances and distributing them?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I am not arguing that we should not be discouraging young people in that way. I am arguing that if someone buys these substances for themselves and a couple of friends, we should not criminalise them as though they were drug dealers when they clearly are not. I worry that, further down the line, Members of this House will be contacted by the parents of someone who has foolishly purchased such a substance on behalf of himself and one or two friends and has been convicted of supplying drugs. That young person’s life chances would be greatly diminished. Of course we hope they will be discouraged by our telling them what will happen to them if they make these purchases, but I certainly do not think we should punish them and label them as a drug dealer for stupidly buying stuff for their friends. On the whole, people pass a strong moral judgment on anyone with any kind of a conviction relating to drugs, but an even stronger judgment is passed on anyone convicted of supplying drugs. We are talking about a young person getting these substances for himself and his friends, not a young person who has become a drug dealer, yet that is what the conviction would be for.