---

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2010

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their input into this debate and I am glad that the House generally supports what we have done. The noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, asked about research into why people take drugs. A certain amount of work has been done by a government research programme, but this is an extremely difficult area. Why do people do this? Why do they have a drink? Why do they do any of this? These things are very difficult to pin down. I have a feeling that, as with our work into what makes someone become radicalised and a violent extremist, there are almost as many reasons as there are people, although there might be strands to give us guidance. However, we do work on this. If we could resolve this question, it would of course be wonderful, as we would be able to come up with an instant answer, but I fear that there is no instant answer. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned the importance of all the other aspects of this issue, such as drugs treatment and handling drugs in a different way. We agree entirely with that, but I believe that we also need a bit of stick. We need to point out to young people when something is really dangerous. It is quite clear from stuff that has happened recently that some people did not understand that mephedrone was dangerous. They thought, "Ah, I can get high on this as it’s legal". It is crucial that the Government should point out what is considered to be dangerous after it has been looked at by the ACMD. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, touched on that. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that this was a knee-jerk reaction. I do not think that that is the case, but we have acted quickly. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, talked about the Misuse of Drugs Act. Yes, we are able to use that, which is a wonderful thing. It is nice to have legislation that lets one act quickly. It was in July of last year, at the Isle of Wight music festival, that we first became aware that this strange created drug, mephedrone, was available. That flagged it up to us. We noticed that people were getting nosebleeds. The council became aware of it and started to think about it. In September, the ACMD wrote to the Home Secretary giving an update on a number of areas of work, one of which was the risk of cathinones. The council was not quite sure at that stage what the risk was, because it did not have enough detail. In December, it wrote to the Home Secretary highlighting mephedrone as a priority. It was getting really concerned about it, saying that there was evidence of harm and that it was sold, as I said, as bath salts, fertiliser or whatever. The Home Secretary then waited for the full, proper advice from the council, which came on 29 March. As soon as that came, he acted immediately, which was absolutely right and appropriate. I think there was something in the newspapers that day about the possibility of someone having harmed themselves. The ACMD report came out on 31 March at around the same time—just in time for that to be taken through the House. It was not knee-jerk, but acting promptly and quickly, as we needed to. I was glad that we received support on that from the Benches opposite and several other noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, touched on where we are and what we are doing in educating people. I touched on that in my initial statement. The answer is that we probably cannot do too much educating so he is absolutely right. Giving out leaflets at various clubs and so on is a very good idea. I think we do that but I will check and make sure. It is absolutely valid. I know we are pushing out 200,000 leaflets to the National Union of Students so that it can get them out, and doing other such things. That is very important. We do not want to criminalise youngsters. I think that was the general feeling from the House, as well. I would love to put the traffickers away for the maximum of 14 years. They are the blighters we need to get. There is no doubt, looking back at the Isle of Wight festival, that the traffickers had been caught because we were putting in rules to stop one group of designer drugs, so they came up with another one. They thought, "Here we go", and put it out by selling it as a fertiliser, letting the word go out that it was legal and people could have it. They are the people we want to get and need to put behind bars. I have no trouble with having them banged up, rather than the youngsters. However, one has to have a stick in the background in case it is needed. I know from personal experience what damage drugs can do to youngsters. The action that we are taking is absolutely valid. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for all the work that she has done and her input into various parts of this area. She is absolutely right: this whole area of drugs is one that we must keep a lot of focus on, taking a long, hard look at whether we are doing it in the right way. There is no doubt that drug misuse wastes lives, destroys families and damages communities. We have got to hit this problem head-on. We know the damage it does. In the past 12 years we have seen progress and notable success but we cannot be complacent. We must be prepared to respond very quickly when something changes. Our way of capturing these things under a generic title answers the point of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. By going, generically, for a whole group, we are managing to keep up, but to say that we can get ahead of them is madness. These people are very cunning and do not care about the people they are damaging. Approval of the order will help to ensure that the controls are in place. I thank everybody for, effectively, round-the-Chamber support and the fact that we are sending out a very clear and united message from this place. I commend the order to the House. Motion agreed.