Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason his Department classifies psilocybin as a Class A Drug without commissioning an analysis of that drug's potential harms.

The Government has no plans to commission the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to assess the classification of Psilocybin. Ministers are under a duty to consider advice from the ACMD prior to making regulations under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (The 1971 Act), including any regulations which reclassify existing controlled drugs. Psilocybin, as an “ester of psilocin”, is controlled as a Class A drug under the 1971 Act and has been since the Act was introduced.

Psilocybin is also placed in Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Psilocin is subject to the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, to which the United Kingdom is signatory.

A number of drugs which have been controlled under the 1971 Act for a considerable period of time have not been subject to analysis or recent analysis of harm. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs regularly provides advice on the harms of drugs, and these are published on the gov.uk website.