Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2009

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for sharing the Government’s thinking on this order, which we support, and for his manfully struggling, if I might respectfully say, with the names, which are incredibly difficult. I was also very grateful for the particularly clear Explanatory Memorandum, which was very good in setting out the options and why the Government had taken them. The Minister mentioned that the generic approach has been taken before, so obviously the Government have experience of the legal term "structurally derived". I highlight this because, with the ever-increasing amount of scientific knowledge available about what stimulates the brain and how, there is a worry that it will be quite easy for chemists to move from one chemical make-up to another with the same effect. It is the effect that we are worrying about, as opposed to which chemicals are causing it, although the Minister may tell me more about that. I worry because, as fast as the Government can move and classify, people interested in selling drugs can move equally fast to another chemical make-up. Given the discussion around GBL and the fact that it has other uses, children and young people might revert to something commonly used in other countries where the marketing is probably less slick. It might not be marketed as GBL and there might be far more sniffing of glue, paint-stripper, nail varnish remover, aerosols and all sorts of things. It is not that by classifying these things the problem will disappear. The biggest effort should still be the educational campaign. What is the current spend on the educational campaign that the Government call FRANK and what is the budget for next year? It is only by adequate education that the health of young people can be safeguarded. There has been much controversy on the classification and advice from the advisory council, and we are sad that the Government chose to disregard its view. You could consider any substance: for example, alcohol is legal but in A&E departments there are many cases of much harm and sudden death from drinking too much. Again, ultimately, that is a question of education, unless we go down the line of prohibition of alcohol. The Minister did very well when he was talking about the objective as regards synthetic cannabinoids. The Explanatory Notes state: ""The ACMD advise that the potential harms of synthetic cannabinoids are broadly commensurate with those of cannabis"," which I think should be followed with a full stop because the ACMD agrees that synthetic cannabinoids are fully commensurate with the harms caused by cannabis. If there was a full stop, it would continue with, "which" the Government chose to reclassify, ""as a Class B drug under the 1971 Act"." That would be against the scientific advice, which the Explanatory Notes do not say. I do not believe that classification is the key; education is the key, and that can begin with children as young as is reasonably possible so that they are not a sitting target for marketing. There was no population or household survey data collection on BZP so there was a pretty limited insight into usage. Although we know when tragedies happen and someone takes something and dies, do the Government have any idea of how widespread the use of most or all of these products is? It is difficult to apply for a budget for education if we do not know how widespread the problem is. It is also a problem in health terms. We do not know how many people are likely to have health issues. Ultimately, that prevents a proper debate taking place.