Oh, I am speaking to them and not begging at all. I wish to speak to the amendments that stand in my name, amendments 12, 13, 14, 15 and—along with Labour colleagues—amendment 5.
We support the aims of the Bill to protect public health and to go after the big guys—the ones who are making a profit out of other people’s endangerment—rather than going after the individuals who decide to try these substances for whatever reason. In that respect, however, I do not think that we are quite there yet, which is why we have tabled our amendments.
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Before I speak to our amendments, I would like to make a plea that I made in a previous debate about the language that we use and the names that people give to these new psychoactive substances. The products have names that are given to them by marketeers to make them sound bold and exciting, and I always say that I will not use those names. We should call them exactly what they are, and I notice that that has been happening much more in the debate today.
Amendment 12 deals with the definition of the term “psychoactive substance”. As I have said, we welcome the broader public health aims of the Bill, and the Scottish Government have worked hard with the Government down here to ensure that the measures are proportionate, workable and based on the best available advice. The best advice we have comes from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which made it clear in its submission that the definitions at the heart of the Bill required further detail. The Home Affairs Select Committee also recommended that the Government should reconsider the definitions.
The Government seem to be coming at this from a different angle and going against the grain of scientific advice. We have therefore tabled amendment 12 to encourage the Government to be more specific with their definitions. If I were to ask a member of the public what they considered to be a legal high, they would generally define it not by its chemical family or by the fact that it was in itself psychoactive, but by the similarity of its effect to that of substances that are already prohibited under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The amendment would ensure that this commonly held way of defining a legal high was similar to that in the legislation. That would improve public understanding and acceptance of these measures.
The other important aspect of the amendment is that it would tie the legislation firmly to the questions of public health and the threat of harm. The Bill as it
stands is an extremely broad measure, and while it is the Government’s intention to cover all psychoactive substances, old or new, synthetic or natural, it is surely a good principle when legislating to be clear about the threat that we are legislating to tackle. We should be tackling the effects of psychoactive substances on the individual and the threat to broader public health, not the fact that the entity itself is mildly psychoactive.
We have also tabled amendment 13. The Scottish National party has welcomed the Government’s move towards criminalising supply and not necessarily criminalising possession, but we have tabled the amendment to try to prevent the counterproductive criminalisation of young people who purchase a psychoactive substance together, with one of them placing the order using money from the wider group. At that moment, that individual would be at risk of being criminalised for supplying a psychoactive substance. However, the effects on public health—and indeed on the group members’ finances— are indistinguishable from the effects had they all purchased the substance individually.