UPDATE 23rd Oct: Home Affairs Select Committee Findings just published: HERE
I wonder if the Government will read, listen and respond!
Besides
the fact that Psychoactive Substances Bill is one of the worst pieces of
attempted legislation since the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971 as currently;
- Psychoactive is not defined in a
way which will satisfy the scientists or the courts
- No one is exactly sure
which things are legal and which things are not
- No one has a clue how
police are going to detect or enforce this
The
second reading of the Psychoactive Substances Bill in the House of Commons was
an eye opening demonstration of how our Government carefully select and accept
evidence in support of their actions (or inactions) whilst omitting, ignoring
or dismissing evidence that challenges them. Policy driven
evidence over evidence driven policy.
NB: The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) (An Expert body who advise the government on drug misuse) strongly recommended the word "novel" be
used so as to help with the definition of psychoactive. As
they have with most of the ACMD's advice, the Government have chosen to ignore
it.
There
are 2 main pieces of data acting as drivers for and underpinning this bill:
- 129 People Lost their
lives to a legal high in 2014
- Republic of Ireland
Implementation is a success as hospital admissions have reduced
Let's
have a closer look at this data:
129 People Lost their lives to a legal high in 2014
In the opening words the owner of this Bill, Mike Penning MP, The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice
stated; "Last year 129 people lost their lives in this
country because of what they thought was a legal, safe high”
This
figure has been taken from the following two documents:
Looking
more closely at how these figures were reached tells a rather different story:
"Deaths
were included where the underlying cause was drug related and one or
more new psychoactive substances were mentioned on the death
certificate."
So if a
person dies with cocaine, alcohol AND a "legal high" in their system,
this will be counted. It is merely an association. It is neither a cause, nor a
reason.
Then if
we look at how "new psychoactive substance" is
defined:
"Some of the more common NPS include synthetic cannabinoids (Eg:
"spice"), GHB and its precursor GBL, piperazines, cathinones (Eg:
mephedrone, benzofurans), and more recently, prescription-type drugs (Eg:
benzodiazepine analogues)
Most of
these substances are now controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act
(1971)."
This
Bill seeks to ban all currently legal and harmful new
psychoactive substances and as such should not count substances that are
currently controlled, whether that be through regulation (Prescription medications, Tobacco, Caffeine and
Alcohol) or through the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) (Cocaine, cannabis, heroin,
and those recently added above). No further legislation is required for these.
In
fact, only 18 of the 129 deaths in England Scotland and Wales involved
substances not already controlled within the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971).
Of those 18, there was only a single incident where a "legal
high" was the only drug mentioned on the death certificate and as
there is no autopsy information we do not know if there were any underlying
conditions which could have played a part in that death.
So in
terms of the headline figure for deaths in England, Scotland and Wales in 2014
that can be reasonably attributed to legal highs is a qualified 1 and not 129
that is being used to justify the need to act quickly. Many organisations,
including the ACMD have tried to highlight this to the government
on several occasions without success.
Republic of Ireland Implementation is working
"There
were 102 head shops in Ireland at the time [of implementation], according to
the Irish police force, and they have now “virtually disappeared”. The number
of clients attending drug treatment services had declined: 368 people received
treatment for problems in 2011 and that number fell to 220 in 2012"
Ok,
Headshops have certainly disappeared, the drugs, however, have not. The
treatment figures have been provided by the NPS Expert Panel Review. No one quite understands why
the government chose not to engage with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of
Drugs to provide this expertise on the misuse of some new drugs and instead set
up a special hand-picked new panel of other "experts", on whose
findings this bill was drawn up.
However, according to the The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA); The
EMCDDA exists to provide the EU and its Member States with a factual overview
of European drug problems and a solid evidence base to support the drugs
debate. Today it offers policymakers the data they need for drawing up informed
drug laws and strategies. Its data is used frequently and is quoted in
government briefings and the NPS Expert Panel Review documents
"Use
of NPS amongst young people (aged 16-24) in Ireland is today the highest in the
EU , and has increased since the 2010 ban, from reported lifetime use of 16% in
2011 to 22% in 2014, with reports of a shift to street and online markets"
- Source Data HERE
"In
Poland where a similar blanket ban was implemented there was initially a rapid
decrease in the number of reported ‘legal-high related poisonings’. However,
three years after the ban the number of poisonings reports had increased above
pre-ban levels, with reports of a shift to street and online markets"
- Source Data HERE
To use
the "success" of Republic of Ireland as a reason to support this bill
is at the very best, irresponsible and rather stupid and at worst, dishonest,
which will result in the deaths of many more young people in this country as it
has in others.
The Reading of The Bill
So both
pieces of data underpinning this bill are fundamentally inaccurate. One might
reasonably expect that our Parliamentary process would highlight and address
these concerns before the bill could pass - Surely that is what our
representatives and commons readings and debates are for, yes?
Well,
Monday's Reading of the bill was all the evidence you will ever need to work
out the answer to that question:
After
Government spokesman, Mike Penning MP completely ignored the initial
attempt by Caroline Lucas to raise such concerns, Norman
Lamb was the next to try; “Does he not have any concern that
if the effect of the legislation is to hand the entire industry over to
organised crime, we may end up with unintended consequences?”
Mike
Penning's answer
was as short as it was utterly wrong; “It has not happened elsewhere;
it did not happen in the Republic of Ireland”
Caroline
then tries again;“Why has the lifetime prevalence of the use of novel
psychoactive substances among young people there increased from 16% to 22% in
the past three years and would it not have been sensible to have done an impact
assessment of the situation in Ireland before pressing ahead with the Bill?”
Mike's
response is disrespectful, dismissive and irresponsible. He shows no interest
whatsoever in the evidence that the bill might do more harm; “The
answer is no, because I do not want any more deaths, which will happen if we
hold back now and wait for more studies, for more this and for more
that.”
Especially
on the basis on 1 questionable death per year if you are not going to accept
the evidence of increase in use and harm being presented to you, then taking a
little more time to properly understand and confirm the true impact of this
bill on the Republic of Ireland before implementing in the UK would surely be
the prudent and intelligent path. It might just save some lives.
When
Caroline pressed the point once again, Mike, once again refused to answer or even
discuss the data being presented and resorted to a personal insult; “She
has a piece of paper in front of her that says that we are all wrong and that
she is right....as usual, I am afraid that she is wrong.”
No
Mike, she has brought pertinent and compelling evidence to the house
which says that this Bill might cause more harm and damage people’s lives
and health, and you are dismissing it without any consideration.
Somewhat
ironically, he adds; “At the end of the day, what are we sent to this
House to do? It is to protect people, and that is what we will do this
evening!”
Long
serving Paul Flynn (LAB) asked him about the “ban on khat?”,adding “ The
reports are that its use continues, but it has gone underground and become more
expensive."
Mike,
once again, completely ignored that and all other questions and continued
quoting his own unestablished facts and a few anecdotes of harm. He made the point
that he knows best as he has been to the Republic of Ireland and "spoken
to police and chemists" He appears to be implying that anecdotal
conversations are worth more than evidence. Obviously if the opposition to the
bill were to produce anecdotal evidence, it would be laughed out of the
House.
Lyn
Brown (LAB) took the floor in support of the
Bill and re-quoted the same figures as the government had, a
number of similar questions were asked trying the other side of the House
for a response;
When Paul
Flynn repeated the EMCDDA data Lyn did concede that; “it is too early
to make a long-term judgement on the success of the Irish
model” which is rather odd, being that this bill she is supporting
actually makes exactly that judgement.
Norman
Lamb asked her; “In Poland, where the
same approach is being applied, the number of poisonings has gone up
dramatically since the ban came in from 562 cases in 2010 to 1,600 in the first
10 months of 2014. Does that not give her cause to pause in supporting the
Bill?
It obviously
didn't as she dismissed it as being incomparable to the UK and the Republic of
Ireland.
When Norman
Lamb repeated the evidence from the EMCDDA on the Republic of Ireland added in
the Polish Official Report and added a reference to the Home Office's own International Comparators
Report then
asked;“Does that not cause the Government to
stop and think about the implications of passing the Bill?”, John
Mann MP jumped up to intervene, and whilst completely ignoring the other quoted
sources, attempted to discredit the EMCDDA and its data. Whilst he
was literally yelling about the lack of credibility of the evidence being
presented, Norman added; “The Government
have not carried out any risk analysis of what happened in Ireland since it
introduced a ban, but surely that is exactly what they ought to have done.”
John
didn't have an answer to that and so sat down for a while before it was his
speech during which he belittled and insulted all those opposing the bill and
stated that Norman Lamb had “struggled
to evidence his case tonight because the evidence is not there” stating that only "academic" sources
were valid, then goes on to describe a number of anecdotes from his local
constituency to evidence his own points and justifying the last 45 years of
drug policy.
Our
government have shown utter contempt for evidence based policy, have shown
absolutely no compassion or intelligence and have shown that no matter how
compelling evidence is, if it is against their policy they will dismiss or
ignore it, no matter how many people might be harmed as a result.
Jon
Liebling – Political Director of United Patients Alliance
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