In responding on the Bill, I gave a number of examples of particular botanical substances that would fail the test of “synthetic”. Therefore, it is very much as my noble and learned friend has said. Those substances do not meet the harm threshold of the 1971 Act, but some natural substances are controlled under it. This is part of the confusion and discussion that is still to be resolved, but we believe that what we have at the moment is clear in terms of the intent of
the Bill and that to insert “synthetic” at this stage would unnecessarily limit the scope of the Bill and potentially open up new loopholes, which would need to be closed down legislatively on another occasion.