---

Drug Classification

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Bercow. The misuse and abuse of drugs is one of the most significant social problems of our time. The previous Government recognised that the situation was out of control and began to take some action, but it was the present Government who invested huge sums in a drugs strategy. In 1997, I campaigned for easier access to treatment for those most affected by the misuse of drugs and I am pleased by the progress on that the Government have made. I am also extremely pleased by recent announcements that the national treatment agency is considering the quality and choice of treatment as well as the quantity. Nevertheless, as the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), has reminded us, out of all European countries, Britain is still the one most badly affected by the harm caused by the misuse of drugs. Since my election to Parliament in 1997, I have been disappointed that so little Government time has been devoted to debating the issue. When the drugs tsar wrote his annual reports, at least we were given the opportunity to debate them on the Floor of the House, but that now seems like a long time ago. I very much welcome this debate, which is quite narrowly focused on the ABC classification. As the chairman of the all-party group on drugs misuse, I am a little shackled today and my mind cannot meander in the directions that it would like to. Our laws on the use of illicit drugs stem from the single convention on narcotic drugs of 1961, as amended by the 1972 protocol, and the convention on psychotropic substances of 1971, both of which were negotiated by the United Nations and, worldwide, have 185 signatories to date. They were implemented in this country by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which has remained largely intact for more than 36 years, although it has been amended several times. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was set up following that Act and the ABC classification of illicit drugs also arose from it. It is the 21st century and, after 36 years, I ask the Minister whether the time has come to review the legislation, or at least the way in which we apply it in this country. It would be timely to do so because of the review that is pending of the Government’s 10-year drugs strategy that was launched in 1998. Britain has applied such legislation more strictly than many of our partners in Europe, especially in recent times. The Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden are three countries that have recently seemed more radical than the UK when dealing with the problem of drugs misuse. Illicit or controlled drugs are classified as class A, B or C on the basis of the harm that they cause to the individual and to society—the ratio is about 50:50—according to the ACMD and others. Drugs that are new to misuse may be placed in one of those three classifications, as recently happened with ketamine. Drugs may be moved from one classification to another; for example, methamphetamine—crystal meth—has recently been reclassified as a class A drug, which is the most harmful category. In 2004, cannabis was controversially moved from class B to C. I supported that reclassification and still do. Previously, more than 100,000 people—mainly young people—received criminal records for being caught in possession of small amounts of cannabis. They suffered the consequences of that because, for example, they had to declare it on a job or visa application form. Before cannabis was reclassified, there was a further problem that police forces acted inconsistently. The ABC classification system also takes account of the route of administration of some drugs. Intravenous injection causes secondary harm. For example, it spreads blood-borne diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS. The classification of a drug has several consequences. In particular, it determines the legal penalties for importation, supply and possession, and the degree of police effort targeted at restricting its use. According to Blakemore:"““The current classification system has evolved in an unsystematic way from somewhat arbitrary foundations with seemingly little scientific basis””." In any debate such as this, it is important to put facts in context. Although an estimated 3.5 million people misuse controlled drugs, 12 million people smoke tobacco and 43 million use alcohol. Far more people die as a result of using alcohol and tobacco than through the misuse of controlled drugs. Some 90 per cent. of all drug-related deaths are attributed to alcohol and tobacco. More people die in this country from the use of licit drugs than illicit drugs. A 2006 report from the UN International Narcotics Control Board shows that there has been a significant rise in the misuse of prescription—legal—drugs. According to that report, the abuse of prescription drugs throughout the world, including here in Britain, now outstrips that of controlled drugs, with the possible exception of cannabis in some countries. In this area of policy, we have to be careful that the application of the law, or the creation of new laws, does not merely displace a person from one type of behaviour to another, such as from misusing illicit drugs to misusing over-the-counter products or prescription drugs. The ABC classification system has come in for a lot of criticism recently from not only our Committee, but, as we have heard from Chairman, the RSA commission on illegal drugs, communities and public policy, which published a report entitled ““Drugs: facing facts”” this year. Our Committee concluded that there are"““significant anomalies in the classification of individual drugs and a regrettable lack of consistency in the rationale used to make classification decisions.””" As we have heard, it flagged up the classifications of ecstasy and magic mushrooms. The Committee also concluded:"““the current classification system is not fit for purpose and should be replaced with a more scientifically based scale of harm, decoupled from penalties for possession and trafficking.””" I know that the Chairman has cited that already, but it is good to repeat it. The evidence that we collected suggested that the ABC classification had no deterrent effect, as we have heard. Indeed, it is highly probable that the great majority of drugs misusers are not aware of the classification system, although constant drugs misusers will of course be aware of the harm caused by individual drugs. I dare to suggest that many in the police are not fully conversant with the classification system either, unless they are involved directly in drugs teams. Our Committee recommended that abused substances, including alcohol and tobacco, should be arranged on a spectrum according to the harm that they cause on the basis of scientific evidence. As the Committee Chairman just stated, our report on the ABC classification system was part of an overarching investigation. The Government claim that their policies are evidence-based and we do not want to lose sight of that in this debate. Fortunately, in a paper published in volume 369 of The Lancet on 24 March of this year, Professor Colin Blakemore and his colleagues, the names of whom have been read out already, provided"““a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse””" that was based on scientific evidence:"““heroin (most harmful), cocaine, barbiturates, street methadone, alcohol, ketamine, benzodiazepines, amphetamine, tobacco, buprenorphine, cannabis, solvents, 4-MTA, LSD, methyphenidate (Ritalin), anabolic steroids, GHB, ecstasy, amyl nitrites ('poppers'), and khat (least harmful)””." The scale includes five legal drugs that are misused and one—ketamine—that was classified only recently. They are included for reference purposes. I emphasise the position of alcohol, tobacco and ecstasy in that scale of harm, as did the Committee Chairman. Blakemore et al established a nine-parameter matrix by dividing the three categories of harm—physical harm, dependency and social harm—into three sub-categories against which each drug was scored on a scale of zero to three by people working in this policy area. The important conclusion from that work was that the scale of harm differed significantly from that represented by the ABC classification system. Although the two substances with the highest harm ratings—heroine and cocaine—are class A drugs, there was a surprisingly poor correlation overall between a drug’s classification under the ABC system and its harm score according to Blakemore et al. Blakemore et al concluded that if the Government were to retain a three-category classification system, drugs with harm scores equal to or greater than that of alcohol should be class A drugs, while cannabis and drugs with lesser harm scores than it should be in class C. Of course, that gives rise to the important question of whether our citizens are receiving justice through the application of the ABC classification system. I have to conclude that the answer is no, they are not. Unfortunately, Blakemore et al have not provided us with harm scores for psilocin or its ester, psilocybin, which are both class A drugs that are constituents of so-called magic mushrooms. I have been unable to get a proper explanation from anybody of why those two chemicals are class A drugs. I have never known them sold on the streets or met people who have used them. Although the use of magic mushrooms—prepared and, especially, fresh—has increased in recent years, I know of only one death caused by them. On 1 March last year, I questioned the chairman of the ACMD, Professor Michael Rawlins, about the classification of fresh magic mushrooms as a class A substance. When I referred to the classification of psilocin and psilocybin, he said:"““I have no idea what was going through the minds of the people who put them in Class A in 1970 and 1971””." If we remember that drugs are classified as A, B or C according to the harm that they cause to the individual and to society it is hard to understand why magic mushrooms, either prepared or fresh, are class A substances. Professor Rawlins admitted that there have been few publications on the properties of psilocin or psilocybin in recent years and that there was little research to support their classification as class A drugs. In his evidence to the Committee on 22 November, Professor Nutt told us that the evidence for placing those substances in class A was ““not strong””. I was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Bill that became the Drugs Act 2005. The Bill was rushed through Parliament ahead of the 2005 general election and as far as I am aware, it was never scrutinised properly by the House of Lords. My understanding was that the Crown was trying to conduct two prosecutions for the sale of magic mushrooms that had been stored in freezers to keep them fresh on the grounds that the shopkeeper was selling prepared magic mushrooms, which were already class A substances. Obviously, the Crown was concerned that the prosecutions would fail if that legislation was not rushed through Parliament before the 2005 general election. That is not exactly the way to make evidence-based policy. I was disappointed, as I think were other Committee members, that the views of the ACMD were not sought formally before fresh magic mushrooms were considered as class A substances, although I accept that doing so was not a statutory requirement. Furthermore, there is always a danger that as the Government get tough on people misusing or abusing one substance, those people will merely start using something else instead. Making magic mushrooms class A substances has displaced people into using alternative substances that might be more dangerous, such as fly agaric. I put it to the Minister that the classification of psilocin, psilocybin and prepared or fresh magic mushrooms as class A substances has not been carried out with an evidence-based approach. Will he ask the ACMD to classify those substances properly? I hope that he agrees that if the ABC classification of drugs is to be seen as credible by the general public and the penalties for using a drug are to be seen to be just, drugs should be classified according to the best available evidence of the day. Now that the scale of harm to which I referred has been published in The Lancet, does the Minister expect advice on it to come to him formally from the ACMD in the not-too-distant future? In January 2006, a former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), indicated that he thought that the ABC classification system should be reviewed. Professor David Nutt, chairman of the ACMD’s technical committee, expressed his dissatisfaction— Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming—