Well, I have given a couple of examples of things that may have been included by mistake. We know from the European monitoring centre that there are hundreds of new substances and chemical compounds that have been identified in the course of each year. Over 500 substances have already been banned in the past five years alone. Therefore, because of that fast-moving change, we have an enabling power in the Bill to allow us to respond quickly and effectively should a threat or an oversight with an unintended consequence come to light. I would have thought that, in good legislative practice, the fact that the Government would seek to respond in that way would carry a great deal of support.
I am conscious of time, but also of the fact that we dealt with a number of these issues under Amendment 19, when we discussed risk. We had a very good and thoughtful debate on that issue, and it was clear from that why, when the expert panel looked at the New Zealand licensing example, it felt that there were weaknesses in it because of how low risk or low harm would be defined. Therefore, the panel chose not to recommend going down that line but instead chose to follow the example of the Republic of Ireland and a blanket ban.
I come to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who asked whether I had seen the new report produced by Trinity College Dublin, an eminent academic source, on the ban on head shops and how it was actually impacting. One of the authors of the study, Dr Bobby Smyth, claims that,
“the results of the survey show that the kind of drugs being sold in headshops are not being used to the same extent any more”.
That would seem to challenge one of the arguments that has frequently been put forward—that somehow the incidence of usage has increased. That is not what has been found. Dr Smyth also claims that those drugs have not been driven underground, as has been feared, stating that,
“the findings have shown that the implementation of legislation, targeted primarily at the vendors of NPS, did indeed coincide with a fall in NPS use among this high risk group of teenagers who attend a drug and alcohol treatment service … The study found that, among the two groups surveyed, not only did the problematic abuse of headshop drugs fall but that the use of cocaine and amphetamines also fell”.
Consumption of so-called legal highs fell sharply after the Government cracked down on head shops that sold them, according to new research. Researchers studied two groups of young people attending a drug and alcohol treatment centre in Dublin. The first group attended the service immediately before the legal changes designed to drive head shops out of business were introduced, and the second attended a year later, after the ban came into effect. The percentage of problematic users of head shop drugs fell from 34% in the first group to zero in the second. The percentage who had taken any such drugs in the previous three months fell dramatically from 82% pre-ban to 28% after the ban was introduced. The study was published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. That clearly produces some evidence, which I know was sought by Members of the Committee earlier when they asked whether the ban was having any effect.
Was the expert panel’s recommendation to take a different approach from New Zealand a sensible way forward? I think it probably is. Just last week, the state of Western Australia passed a blanket ban as well. There is a gathering view that this is having some effect in tackling a very difficult problem, and that licensing, however well-meaning and thoughtfully presented the arguments for it may be, is not as effective in achieving the outcomes that we all want.