My Lords, Amendments 4 and 6 seek to ensure that following commencement of the Act, the Government will undertake an annual impact assessment of the Act—as the Minister has indicated he might be willing to do anyway—including an assessment of,
“deaths and other harms caused by all controlled or banned substances”.
The important points in that sentence are “all controlled”, under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and “banned substances” under the Bill. Of course there is always an interrelationship between those two groups of substances, as I mentioned in an earlier debate. In addition, the Government would have to,
“publish a report annually setting out the impact of this Act”—
again, including information about the impact on the number of deaths and other harms caused by all these controlled and banned substances.
The point behind these amendments is that, as I mentioned earlier, we do not have two separate markets: one for substances controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and another quite separate one for psychoactive substances that will be controlled under this legislation. The reality is that once substances are illegal, they join a single market and are purchased from the same illegal drug barons or from the web. This is an absolutely crucial point, which runs through a number of these amendments. Social media are also absolutely vital in this. It is through social media that young people immediately communicate about a banned psychoactive substance or something new arriving from somewhere, or that a traditional drug such as ecstasy has suddenly become more pure, and the young people will all rush into that area of the market rather than moving from one market to another.
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For those of us with a substantial concern about the unintended consequences of drug policies in this country and across the globe, this is a profoundly important amendment. The point is for the Government to begin to move towards a rational, evidence-based drug policy. If they do that, it will be the first time in 50 years that any Government will have done it. That is a fairly remarkable point for anyone in this House to make, but it happens to be true. In that sense, how can the Government not do what this amendment suggests? It is interesting that the Minister indicated that perhaps this is one area where the Government might be willing to move towards us. Let us hope that that happens.
It may be that in view of that offer from the Minister, I do not need to continue with this speech. I was going to give examples of how these things happen,
but if we are going to have a dialogue about a genuine impact assessment of the Bill when it becomes law, I hope that we are all on the same page at this point. On that basis, I beg to move.