---

Dangerous Drugs

I have not come round to that; it was my position five years ago. If the right hon. Gentleman looked at the record, he would find that that is what I have been saying. The point is, however, that what we cannot do—I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree—is so to bully our advisers, or threaten them with the sack if they give the "wrong" advice, that they provide the advice that they think Ministers want to hear. It ill behoves the Conservative spokesman, particularly in view of the BSE fiasco, not to bear in mind the very clear conclusions in the Phillips report of 2000, which said that scientific advisers should not have to go back and do it all again because the Minister is not happy with the content of the advice. We must have clear published advice, and the Government must consider it properly. I shall return to this issue again in few moments. What the ACMD usually does is consider the harms that drugs cause, and then consider the harms of illegality. It is important to be aware that there are risks and benefits both ways. There is no doubt that mephedrone is harmful. Although I am only a medical doctor, my advice to people is very clear—that they should not take this drug. I am possibly one of the few Members who can say that they have never taken an illegal drug, which may say something about my university time, as I was never offered it. I am also very clear and passionate about alcohol abuse and, indeed, nicotine abuse. It is nevertheless important to recognise that banning a drug has potential harms, and these are aspects that we would expect advisers to consider. First, the purity will be impacted by the substances with which the drug is cut by people illegally peddling it for profit. Secondly, criminal gangs can take over. Indeed, in paragraph 6.6 of its report, the ACMD points out that in Guernsey, where mephedrone was banned, criminal gangs have taken over and violence is now associated with accessing the drug, which was not the case previously. Although the ACMD listed that under "Societal Harms", it is actually a harm of criminalisation. Thirdly, users—if they are not prevented from using the drug—will be driven into the hands of those who want to sell them even more addictive and more harmful substances. Alternatively, they will turn to another substance which is still legal and may be more harmful. Furthermore, a ban may cause the price to rise, and acquisitive crime is more likely to be committed by people who are addicted to the substance. That is a logical consequence. I accept that drugs ruin lives, but criminal records ruin lives as well. Criminalising people, whether they are under 18 or young adults, has a consequence for those people which we cannot discount. I have not heard a word about any of those issues in the media coverage, or from the Minister or the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire). I think it wrong for Ministers, or people who want to become Ministers, not to address any of the potential downsides of the policy. I still support what the Government are doing, but at least I have considered those issues, and I question whether the ACMD had a chance to do so. I urge the media, when they see parents of young people who are upset that their child, or young adult son or daughter, is using the drug and bemoan that fact, to bear in mind that banning it will not cure the addiction. Paragraphs 5.12 to 5.17 of the ACMD report deal with deaths. The report states that""There have been at least 18 deaths in England where cathinones have been implicated"" and that""There have been at least seven deaths…where cathinones have been suspected."" It continues:""Currently, seven of these"—" the 18 deaths in England—""have provided positive results for the presence of mephedrone at post mortem. To date, in one case the coroner concluded that the death was 'natural' and that an inquest was not required. The remaining cases are awaiting inquest."" We know, then, that one case was a "not" and the others are only "maybes". I shall not repeat what was said by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East about "polydrug" use, but this drug is used in combination with other drugs, which may themselves be the cause of death. The same applies to the other reported deaths. I do not for a moment minimise the potential impact of the drug, but we must think carefully before stating as facts things that are not facts. We are all entitled to our opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. I realise that there is not much time for the Minister to respond, but I want to say a bit more about the ACMD. As the hon. Member for Hornchurch pointed out, the problem lies not with the ACMD but with the Home Secretary. However, I should like to know whether the hon. Gentleman, who seeks to be a Minister, thinks that Professor Nutt should have been sacked for the lecture that he gave at King's college, as professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial college, and, if so what he should have been sacked for. I tried to ask the hon. Gentleman that, but he would not allow me to intervene, which is not a good sign. Someone who wishes to become a Minister dealing with these matters should be expected to be able to answer questions of that kind, whether they come from parents, enforcement agencies or experts. I invite the hon. Gentleman to tell us now that he agrees with the Home Secretary—and the shadow Home Secretary, who needs as much help as possible at the moment—that Professor Nutt should have been sacked, and should have been sacked earlier. If he does end up as the Minister, he will find that, on that basis, people will be unwilling to give him the advice that he seeks. I have written to Lord Drayson asking whether the Government's own principles for the treatment of scientific advice were not breached five times last week by the Government, who acted not just without considering the report—which they were bound to consider under the Government principles issued on Budget day—but before it had even been published. In fact, according to Eric Carlin, who resigned last week, when the chair of the ACMD left to brief the Home Secretary for a press conference the ACMD had not even finished the report. The Government responded to the press not only on a report that had not been considered, that had not been published and would not be published for three days, but on a report that had not yet been completed. That makes a travesty of the advisory process. If, as a result of that, this statutory instrument, if—or rather, I suspect, when—it is passed by both Houses—is challenged in the courts as being ultra vires and the Government lose the case, something which, as has been said, should have been done much earlier, will be delayed by months. The Government will find that people are unwilling to give advice if they break their own rules and pre-empt the work of the experts. The Government do not have to take that advice, but they promised to consider it properly and I do not believe that in this circumstance, they did so. Although the Liberal Democrats are happy to support the order, it is with sadness that we do so at a time when the advisory system on which we rely for proper policy is in crisis. It is not just the Government who suffer if they do not get good advice; we all suffer, because we end up with bad policy.