Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2019

The order amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to reduce the breadth of compounds controlled as third-generation synthetic cannabinoids. The ACMD’s amended definition will ensure that compounds which have been found to cause harm will continue to be caught by the generic definition. I assure the Committee that the Government are acutely aware of the continued harms posed by the third generation of synthetic cannabinoids, and I want to make it clear that the order does not revoke the generic definition. Harmful synthetic cannabinoids such as Spice and Mamba will continue to be controlled through the generic definition.

The order, if accepted and made, will come into force on 15 November. To complement it, a further statutory instrument will be introduced to make parallel amendments to the generic definition under Schedule 1 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 and in the Misuse of Drugs (Designation) (England, Wales and Scotland) Order 2015. As a result, the compounds currently captured unintentionally will no longer require a Home Office licence for the conduct of research as they will no longer be controlled.

I hope that I have made the case to amend the generic definition of the third generation of synthetic cannabinoids to remove the compounds that were unintentionally controlled from the generic definition. I commend the order to the Committee.

Fourthly, this sort of mistake further undermines the credibility of the system of controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Drugs are being classified primarily on the basis of politics rather than scientific evidence. For example, the previous Labour Government downgraded cannabis from class B to class C on the basis of scientific evidence only for the same Labour Government, under a new Prime Minister, to reclassify it back to class B for political reasons. Some drugs, such as GHB or GBL, that cause a large number of deaths—particularly among gay men, including a former partner of mine—are in class C while MDMA or ecstasy, which cause far fewer deaths, are in class A. We do not oppose the correction of this mistake by means of this SI but we clearly state it again: drug misuse should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue; all the efforts of government and law enforcement should be focused on harm reduction, not criminalisation; and the Government need to expand their review of drug misuse to include law changes, including potentially legalising and regulating controlled drugs.

The Liberal Democrats are not the only ones saying this. Last week, a survey showed that twice as many people were in favour of the legalisation of cannabis than against it. Research published last week showed that fewer teenagers used cannabis when it was legalised in the United States. The debate on drug misuse is changing. We believe that it is time that the Government paid attention to that.

The ACMD’s 2014 recommendations did not come into effect until mid-December 2016. Again, what was the reason for the apparent delay of at least two years? If consultation took place during that lengthy period, did any individuals or organisations raise the problem about the breadth of the definition that the research community raised shortly after mid-December 2016? If not, why did the ACMD—or anyone else—not realise the problem that this order seeks to address before its recommendations were implemented? Did the changes that were brought into effect in mid-December 2016 properly reflect the ACMD’s recommendations of two years or more previously? If not, is that one reason why the problem of the breadth of the definition came to light only after the mid-December 2016 changes came into effect?

This draft order does not seek to address the issue of the use, or rather misuse, of drugs. The UK now has, I believe, the highest recorded level of mortality from drug misuse since records began. I hope that we will soon hear from the Government the different approaches, based on what would most effectively reduce harm, that they intend to consider and adopt in response to a drug situation that appears to be getting worse.