Baroness Meacher has tabled amendments at Report Stage of the Police and Social Responsibility Bill (for debate today Wednesday 13th July) to discuss the issue of ‘legal highs’. Mephedrone was one of the early ones, now there are clever chemists in China and indeed everywhere else creating new synthetic chemical stimulants every week. As one is detected and outlawed, another six pop up.
The continuing government policy of trying to prohibit legal highs on very little evidence of public harm calls into question the procedure for controlling drugs. Members of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform at their last meeting on the 23rd May were concerned about the practicalities of implementing an alternative approach to the regulation of new drugs in the UK. We proposed instead that we carry out an Inquiry into this issue. Such an Inquiry would involve four to five meetings of the group, over six to nine months, would take evidence from approximately twelve expert witnesses attending the meetings and would canvass written evidence from a further 20 witnesses. We are currently seeking funding to support the implementation of the Inquiry.
Baroness Meacher, the Chair of our group moved amendments to the Bill intended to promote a debate about alternative forms of regulation and to introduce specifically a consideration of the Intoxicating Substances (supply) Act 1985 which was designed to limit the access of minors to solvents and more generally ‘enactments of trading standards’. As the Bill stands, it introduces a capacity to take out ‘temporary class drug orders’ (often referred to as ‘temporary banning orders’) for new psychoactive substances by amending the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. After a good debate with a number of supporting contributions Baroness Meacher withdrew the amendment with a view to discussing the detail of the implementation of Schedule 17 with the government. This she has now done and her amendments at report stage reflect those discussions.
This is what I call a long haul issue. We would like policy to conform to five basic principles:
1) Evidence of effectiveness and value for money should be the cornerstones for national and international drug policy.
2) Where there is insufficient evidence, it should be a priority to promote research into the effectiveness of different approaches.
3) Effective drug policies need reform of UN Conventions and domestic laws.
4) Policies should minimise harms to users and wider society while at the same time not restricting the development of pharmaceuticals which potentially could confer benefits to society.
5) The use of potentially harmful substances needs to be controlled and regulated in a way which is: proportionate to their potential harms and benefits
One Primary Point, sub-divisible at first into three, concerning “harm versus good”, and “material/money cost/saving versus human/health quantification/qualification”:
(1) We the Public need to be given “Differentiation Lists” (here with drugs/diets, but also elsewhere with methodology such as between “Directive and Participative” Bodies, such as democracy, boardroom, neighbourhood-club, family-group-self-management)
clearly distinguishing “Public Good” from “Public-Harm”.
(2) In so doing, we shall all, and each, be able to refer to what “Good” is affordably* and harmlessly possible, for us to be holding-onto and self-and-mutual-group-working-at-and-with.
(3) Since primarily we need to be optimising the “human-energies and general-conservations of healths & ecologies (including those of Biomes as well as of individual life-species)”,
and since Money can ever only be at best secondary to that “Life”-need.
we need to be given, and kept updated with, “Price-Lists” of these “human-energies” and “environmental-costs”.
————–
* = Using an Holistic Lifestyle Budgeting model, such as JSDM’s “handy-palmate” five-fingers sequence (in order of priority), my
1. personal-body-mind-energies
2. timeframes (lifeplace-workplace 75/25 %)
3. things (bed, clothes, food, bicycle)
4. places (that I visit and feel safe in)
5. money.
which to date the NHS Psychological and Health Support for Older People has recognised and supported with good effect.
==============
0830W13July11.JSDM.
Is the high provided by copious spinach, a multivitamin a day, and good fine weather, legal?
In this vicinity if anything silly is illegal then the kids and some adults too get quite enthusiastic about it, just like tobacco and alcohol smuggling. In fact in order to encourage good business, although we are a United Europe, tobacco and alcohol smuggling is still illegal.
On that basis, and the fact that the noble baroness is a learnéd physician, may it be assumed that the committee wants to “encourager les autres” for all the fancy
concoctions that the monopolistic “health” service does purvey?
It may be time for governments to take an entirely different approach to drugs in general.
In seriousness, the medication given us all for one thing or another can be, and often is, a detriment to our well being. That costs the NHS a fortune. Probably far more than the illegal selling of drug induced euphoria found on the black market.
So, if you decide drugs can be freely available with the strict provision of telling the nation openly and showing them openly what taking this substance does to you, and adding to that the responsibility of, if you take it and you get ill, don’t expect the state, or, the tax payer to pick up the tab for your demise.
Inhumane, maybe, but, so is taking a substance that will ultimately kill you. People are not fools, if they know the odds then they must deal with it. We all complain of the nanny state. Well this is the Nanny state in full flight, isn’t it?
If you do this, it can be regulated to be sure that what is sold is safe. Not cut or split with poison. You will know exactly how much is in the country and where it is coming from. You will do away with the underground seller. And you will be able to tax it. Although, not too highly or the underground seller will be cheaper and his business will flourish.
Look at it from an adult manner, because, with all the prohibition you have you are not dealing with the problem. This way it places the person in control of their life and their fate and that means responsibility.
Now I know there must be a million pitfalls here. And as I know very little, if anything at all about street drugs, you could say I don’t know what I am talking about. But, people always look after themselves better than the state does. You keep them like children with all the protection you offer.
In the final analysis all you can do is warn and leave them to it.
You do this when you take young people into the military. No one in their right mind would choose to go and get blown up in a war zone, but, some just have this sense of adventure about them and you have to allow them their choice.
It’s the same with all the other choices in life. You have to allow responsibility to exist in each one of us. Otherwise you have a nation of children.
Did you know they have just decoded the genome for the humble potato? Does this mean we can expect a murphy ‘legal high’ sometime soon? In the plant world these intoxicating substances are produced to confuse insect or animal predators. In the political world it seems they are produced to confuse legislators.
Baroness Murphy, I do so hope that your 5 principles are adopted as currently policy is not effective as people still take drugs, they are more available and of higher purity than when the policy was implemented. Current estimates place the current policy at ~£17bn a year, whilst not being effective and driving many crimes and forms of violence.
UN conventions actually conflict when it comes to drugs policy i.e. Human Rights are often disregarded not only in the rights of the individual to have sovereignty of their own mind but also in the supply/interdiction efforts (see Mexico) or in cultural and indigenous rights (http://www.undrugcontrol.info/en/weblog/item/2626-treaty-guardians-in-distress – Bolivia’s right to chew Coca leaf compared to the single convention).
Under the current policy, the government thinks that “control” means ‘hand the product to violent organised criminals and gangsters to handle’.
Whilst it is of course true that drugs cause harms, some more than others, it is also true that drugs have been used throughout Human history. Even animals use drugs (cats and catnip or Wallabies eating commercial Opium crops http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8118257.stm). We cannot eliminate the desire to use drugs – maybe it is more than just ‘getting high’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2002.00024.x/abstract. But we can make their use SAFER.
Legal highs are just a symptom of a failed policy, one that doesn’t address the root cause of the problem and instead tries to ban its way out of everything.
We need real and proper control and monitoring. That can only be achieved through some sort of sensible legal regulation (see for reference http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blueprint%20download.htm). As a LibDem said today in PMQ’s, maybe with the ousting of some of the Murdoch dominance and hopefully, media reforms – politicians (and Lords) won’t be so scared to say what they truly believe about the war – many believe that the ‘war on drugs’ approach has failed and is time for another method, but are too scared of certain tabloids to say this in public.
Current drug policy is not only a disgrace to Human rights it also shames our ‘democracy’ when our leaders can’t speak the truth on failed policies for fear of upsetting a newspaper.
The more policy you have the more drug abuse there will be. The above advertises drugs.
There is a golden rule for it; not Murphy’s Laws but somebody’s.
Whilst we all appear to be in favour of minim ising the marketing and use of harmful-drugs,
we each differ, and evidently inhibitively & imminently fatally, as to what Healthy-Habits-Forming and Non-Harmful instruments and foods (including medical-drugs)
we (including proactively the Government and the Education, Health, and Communities sectors),
need to be publicising and teaching as being both primary & sufficient Human-Needs (thereby deserving human-rights legislation for the provision/acquisition of).
One of the main benefits, to the employee, of the Workplace (25% timeframe) is that s/he does not need, indeed may not be allowed, to spend their own money therein.
But the 75% Lifeplace is ‘the opposite’, wherein ‘spend-as-much-as-you-possibly-can’ ; including on inhibitive and harmful products such as ‘street-drugs’, smoking, drinking cheap poisonous ‘Chinese’ plagiaristically-labelled alcohol, is the permanent ‘order-of- the-day’.
Such ‘free-market’ spending has even become an economic-equation-necessary part of both Global-politics and ‘a free modern society’, that Consumers be 24/7 exposed to racketeering, ‘quack’ knowledge-courses/medical-and-alternative-treatments/ individual-human-development know-how (the more you fork out the better shade of lipstick you’ll deserve), “caveat emptor”.
Neither Democracy nor the Control-of-Harmful-Drugs need Hierarchical enforcement;
but both desperately do need 24/7-educated Egalitarian neighbourhood-grouping, and networking.
1503Th14July11.JSDM.
The nonsense last year over ‘plant food’ demonstrated the game of cat and mouse we’re playing with drugs. And we’re losing that game.
By banning it, it allowed politicians to say how ‘tough’ they are on drugs while willfully neglecting reality.
Until being a ‘maverick’ politician with real ideas becomes advantageous rather than career-killing, we’ll be stuck with the same old tried, tested and failed ideas.
I think in private most politicians acknowledge that the ‘drug war’ and ‘ban it’ ethos does not work and causes more harm than good – why else would Cameron have called for investigations into decriminalisation and legal regulation before he got into power?! Baroness Murphy, perhaps you could enlighten us as to the general private view of politicians in regards to drugs policy?
It doesn’t take much research to see that prohibiting an in-elastic, high-demand and sometimes dangerous commodity will never work. Their biggest opposition is the media, if they come out individually they get tarred by the press – think Professor Nutt, Bob Ainsworth or even some of the high ranking personalities from the global commission on drugs… a consensus is required, with a rational public debate – away from the usual Sun/Daily Mail led campaigns to ban everything on the most meagre and superficial of grounds..
During PMQ’s on Wednesdady:
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): Does the Prime Minister believe that once a healthier relationship is established between politicians and the media, it will be easier for Governments to adopt evidence-based policy in relation to, for instance, tackling drugs, community sentences, or immigration and asylum?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110713/debtext/110713-0002.htm#11071354000005
I sure hope so!
Only a drug users actions(possession, manufacture, etc.)are unlawful and using the description “legal highs” just serves to prevent rational debate. Please stop talking about the drugs(Prohibited or otherwise)and start talking about a persons rights to use them. As a cannabis and “magic mushroom” consumer, I believe that the choice of “drugs” I use, or not use(pharmaceutical), should be entirely my own. As for the regulation of such drugs, there is none at the moment in the UK, as criminal law cannot regulate production or supply. So please, lets have an honest debate about personal choice, and what it means to have the freedom to chose your own way in life. Instead of what we have now, a direct form of discrimination(Alcohol and tobacco excluded)against drug users and their families and friends. I want to have the freedom to think for myself. I want to have a chance to live my life free from the fear of arrest. I, like many other consumers want to see a regulated market, to lessen the harms associated with prohibited drugs like heroin and cocaine. I…All “I” want is my freedom of choice back, without all the associated criminal sanctions, to live my life as I see fit.
Senex, lots of people get their endorphins from chips, this is a real Murphy legal high!
I’ve a lot of sympathy with you Nik Morris, but we have to acknowledge that the harm many drugs do is imposed not only on the individual which we might accept as their choice but also on others and there-in lies the problem. Gar, Jake and Chris I largely agree with you.
Baroness Murphy – I think Nik’s point goes further than you may realise. Everybody is talking about regulating drugs, yet this expression is rooted in a historic deception about what the law can and ought to do with respect to drug misuse. We are familiar with talking about ‘illegal drugs’, yet realise something is wrong when we try to talk about the soon to be illegal legal highs. What is wrong is simple – the law does not regulate drugs at all, it regulates persons with respect to their property in controlled substances. The distinction is much much more than semantics; it actually goes to the core of how we (mis)understand and how we are failing with this debate. Nik is right to allude to the fact that we should let people have freedom unless and until they cause social harm in the way that you recognise is the object of the law. This means that persons minding their own business with drugs ought to be able to access clean drugs with consumer protections unless that activity leads to problems.
Right now all the social problems can be mainly attributed to the paradox of consequences of prohibition policy, and it’s churlish to imagine we have any idea of what are the residual problems directly attributable to a drugs misuse, as opposed to those created by the criminal market and the skewed administration of the excellent Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
I have sent a detailed analysis of the law to Frank Warburton so that your group can access some very important research about the misunderstanding of the MDA. I am waiting for his full response and frustratingly this is taking some time. In the meantime I note that the group is still labouring under some key errors of understanding about the legal issues. I would emphasise that we certainly do not need any new primary legislation to regulate persons with respect to dangerous drugs properly.
It strikes me that any acute concern over ‘clever Chinese chemists’ whilst making good tabloid copy with xenophobic overtones, is disproportionate given the harms caused by the misuse of the lethal addictive legal highs alcohol and tobacco (as well as prescription drug misuse)outstrips that of all currently controlled drugs by a factor of about 60, and I would hazard a guess that it outstrips the harms caused by all so-called legal highs by a factor of thousands (social harm prevention supposedly being the very point of the law). I do agree something must be done, but the real problem with respect to the relatively minor problem of ‘legal highs’ is the lack of regulation and sensible selling (as is the case with currently controlled drugs).
Thanks Baroness Murphy – I think Nik’s point goes further than you may realise. Everybody is talking about regulating drugs, yet this expression is rooted in a historic deception about what the law can and ought to do with respect to drug misuse. We are familiar with talking about ‘illegal drugs’, yet realise something is wrong when we try to talk about the soon to be illegal legal highs. What is wrong is simple – the law does not regulate drugs at all, it regulates persons with respect to their property in controlled substances. The distinction is much much more than semantics; it actually goes to the core of how we (mis)understand and how we are failing with this debate. Nik is right to allude to the fact that we should let people have freedom unless and until they cause social harm in the way that you recognise is the object of the law. This means that persons minding their own business with drugs ought to be able to access clean drugs with consumer protections unless that activity leads to problems.
Right now all the social problems can be mainly attributed to the paradox of consequences of prohibition policy, and it’s churlish to imagine we have any idea of what are the residual problems directly attributable to a drugs misuse, as opposed to those created by the criminal market and the skewed administration of the excellent Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
I have sent a detailed analysis of the law to Frank Warburton so that your group can access some very important research about the misunderstanding of the MDA. I am waiting for his full response and frustratingly this is taking some time. In the meantime I note that the group is still labouring under some key errors of understanding about the legal issues. I would emphasise that we certainly do not need any new primary legislation to regulate persons with respect to dangerous drugs properly.
It strikes me that any acute concern over ‘clever Chinese chemists’ whilst making good tabloid copy with xenophobic overtones, is disproportionate given the harms caused by the misuse of the lethal addictive legal highs alcohol and tobacco (as well as prescription drug misuse)outstrips that of all currently controlled drugs by a factor of about 60, and I would hazard a guess that it outstrips the harms caused by all so-called legal highs by a factor of thousands (social harm prevention supposedly being the very point of the law). I do agree something must be done, but the real problem with respect to the relatively minor problem of ‘legal highs’ is the lack of regulation and sensible selling (as is the case with currently controlled drugs).
Baroness Murphy, regarding “but also on others”.. this is largely down to the individual effects that each drug causes. We aren’t going to argue that the effects of Alcohol cause more social problems than Cannabis, or MDMA for that matter.
The problem with worrying about the harms that drugs cause to others misses the point in just how damaging to others the prohibition on their manufacture, supply, possession etc. is. Most acquisitive crime is associated with addiction which could be massively reduced by prescribing said drugs so addicts don’t have to rob and steal to fund their habit. Many violent crimes are also related to the control of illicit drug profits, which in itself perpetuates poverty as inner-city youth see selling drugs as their only source of income and thus give up on school/education. These are just some of the harms caused by prohibition.
Many other activities cause harm to “others”, depending on how you define harm. Driving/cars can kill and emissions exacerbate respiratory conditions. Fast foods help fuel obesity which can lead to early death which can leave children without parents (and put a strain on the NHS which others have to pick up both in the form of taxes and lack of funds for emergency care.. a form of harm?). The only difference between social harms caused by other actives and those caused by drugs is that the government chooses to regulate and mitigate the harms with said other activities, such as emission controls and labelling/ad campaigns for fast food – whilst with drugs it feels that organised criminals and gangsters is how best to control this potentially dangerous activity. With a proper and fit-for-purpose legal regulation scheme (age checks, quality control, thorough/accurate/truthful drug education), the harm to both users and society in general will be far less than that which we currently have! We have to acknowledge the explicit harm that prohibition is causing today and realise that that is worse than the harms of the drugs themselves!!
As BM mentions chips, was this a Freudian slip? Does she consume a chip butty before exercising or afterwards. Is she craving the fat, the starch or both?
The word endorphin is an abbreviation of ‘endogenous morphine’. Charles Q Choi reported in 2004 that human cells can produce morphine. He also went on to say:
“Morphine has been discovered for decades in trace amounts in animal organs and fluids such as toad skin, cow brain, and human heart and urine, as well as in invertebrates such as mussels. The most widely accepted explanation was such morphine was of environmental origin, since it also occurs in hay, lettuce, and milk.”
So there you have it. A chip butty with iceberg lettuce downed with a glass of milk the perfect way to a ‘legal high’ courtesy of BM and the NHS. However, I would not recommend taking the piss.
Ref: Human Cells Produce Morphine; Sept 2004
http://classic.the-scientist.com/article/display/22412/
Thanks for the sympathy Baroness.
However, both Cannabis and Liberty Cap Mushrooms are natural products of nature.
For government to say I should not grow or pick these things for consumption is just plain wrong, and I believe this for only one reason.
Government is not God.
I also believe that all drugs that can be used for recreational purposes, should be properly regulated for the good of the drug users in this country today. So, use the misuse of drugs act and don’t waste time with this motion. You have the tools to regulate all drugs new and old, but will not use them. The bigger question should be why? Why not regulate through the Misuse of Drugs act? Why not attempt to bring down drug use through proper controls?
In regards to family and friends…Obese people are a burden on society, family and friends. Do we stop them eating?
Car users can have accidents whilst using mobile phones. Do we ban phones?
MPs can be alcoholics. Do we ban their drink?
We all make choices in life, but mine are restricted and the reason should be asked as to why? Why? When I would never dream of attempting to restrict yours. I want my freedom to think back, and I want it back now.
Yours sincerely,
Nik
I’ve now noticed that I have made a most obvious mistake in regards to my last post. It is not the regulation of drugs that I’m asking for. It is the regulation of my actions. The law can only regulate me. Only I can be held to account for my actions. If I choose to consume drugs so be it. If I become a problem user, please use the law to prevent me from causing harm to myself and others, as is the case with alcohol and tobacco consumers. People can drink, but they can also get arrested for being drunk and abusive. I would like this to be the same for me. I’m not asking for a drugs free for all, as is the case now with the open black market, but a market place that has age limits on consumption and licencing for personal cannabis grows. Many thanks Baroness for giving me a voice on this matter. I do hope I’ve helped the debate in some small way. Nik
i would like to see drugs removed from the hands and control of criminals and children through age limits and licensed regulated supply , even allowing people to produce their own removes the need for consumers to seek unregulated dealers , like with home brew and counterfeit alcohol !,i would like to see the introduction rates to harder drugs reduced and stemmed ,and slowly petered out, by separating the sales of hard and soft drugs ,i would welcome the drop in victim producing crime brought about by just prohibition ,i would like to see cannabis in schedule 4 and cancer victims given the chose to cure their cancer with a natural herb rather than experimental nuclear and radioactive medicines
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/49120/Diane_Thesis_1.pdf?sequence=1
http://www.advancedholistichealth.org/PDF_Files/Heptaocellular%20Cancer.pdf
http://www.cannabisscience.com/download/cancer_extract_kills.pdf#page=2
, i would like to see policy driven by unbiased fact and evidence not not made up science to match the policy and to cover up the deals ,i have no worry’s with adults consuming drugs that are by scale less harm full than alcohol , its ok treating addicts ,it help us all ,but its pointless if the trickle of introduction to hard addictive drugs is now a river because of prohibition , let the police deal with victim producing crimes and regulation be the foundation to make safer for all , at the moment prohibition uses its own failings as reason to introduce more prohibition , i often wonder how much of the public sector is propped up on the work generated by no regulation ,at all levels regulation is needed, because no regulation give way to corruption , like a law setting policy based on no factual evidence! , i wonder how many of its victims had to show evidence before they had their life destroyed for getting caught by the law set by that policy not based on evidence ! unlike those who pushed the laws through !,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, who never got caught ! lol send out the message” you could make it to home secretary if you don’t get caught ”
now let not forget that legal highs are subs for the last banned highs ! and those that are banned are that because of factors of no regulation , ie quality control , cannabis was put into class C for good reasons in 2004 ,,, but with no regulation against advice from some 🙂 ! ,so quality control was non , later it was moved back to class B because of mental health scares created by media , well we know know that the health scares were valid involving mostly children ! but we also now know them health problems were brought about from no regulation , age limits and quality control ,unregulated black market plants are forced to grow fast for maximum weight in the shortest time , as to make the criminal gangs more money in the fastest possible time , they only want the money and don’t give a hoot about age ,quality, or if you walk away with heroin ,or if the cannabinoids are ripe and balanced before its consumed , sadly this has created a situation where consumers of , medical or not, are safer dealing and producing amongst themselves , risking becoming churned up under the wheels of the law driven by the prohibition machine drunk on power , but then on the other foot real victim producing criminals are using cannabis myths produced by the twisted half truths of prohibition to get reduced sentencing even advised by their legal team to pull such card!, well along with the media hysteria prohibition likes this, using the substance as an excuse for commiting far worse crimes! , well like many said placing cannabis back in class B has not dealt with these problems brought about by no regulation ,in fact it was like a spiked gift for mr Cameron !lol only regulation can reduce danger for all and gain much needed respect from all , only regulation will have and compile figure to use for achievement levels for improvement , prohibition can only guess and never has to hit a target to prove its working ! though its a bit late for prohibition now! mathematically classed as the con man paradox
@Beccy:
You are a clever girl to have found that.
Thank you, it is much appreciated.
Maude