I will be as brief as possible, Mrs Moon. I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on securing this debate and on his long and strong advocacy on these issues. I am tempted to say only that I agree with everything that he said, because I do, but I have a few brief comments to add.
First, I want to say how disappointing it is to see the Minister and the shadow Minister in their places today, not because I have anything against either of them personally, but because I hope that one day we will have a debate on drug policy where a Health Minister and shadow Health Minister answer the debate. For too long, we have treated drug policy as a Home Office and criminal issue rather than the health issue that it should be.
My starting premise is that we will never stop people wanting to take drugs. Humans have taken psychoactive substances for thousands of years. Our brains like them—it is not our fault; they just do. If we are honest, people take drugs because, often, they are enjoyable, whether it is alcohol or one of the illegal drugs. Most people enjoy taking them. Most people take them without problems most of the time. Sometimes, however, use becomes problematic, whether it be of alcohol or illegal drugs. We do not tackle problematic alcohol use by banning alcohol. That would be absurd, so why is it any less absurd that we ban drugs that cause problems when used wrongly? We need to make a distinction between problematic use and recreational use that causes no harm. We have a drug policy that is not working, as has already been said.
Is the clock counting down the time for my speech?