My Lords, these amendments seek to reframe the definition of a psychoactive substance for the purposes of the Bill. This Bill is designed to capture substances supplied for human consumption that have psychoactive effects. Its aim is to capture substances that are not currently controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, but, as with all drugs when misused, carry health risks.
Subsection (2) provides that,
“a substance produces a psychoactive effect in a person if, by stimulating or depressing the person’s central nervous system, it affects the person’s mental functioning or emotional state”.
We accept that this definition has been drawn purposefully wide. The nature of this market and of experience to date shows that producers of the substances are constantly and actively looking for loopholes to exploit, thereby fuelling this reckless trade. This learning has been central to how we have designed this Bill and in particular our definition.
By using a definition based on a substance’s effects rather than the chemical composition of substances, this legislation will avoid the issues that we have continued to face with the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Many new psychoactive substances are still legal due to the speed at which they are produced, with manufacturers inventing new substances by tweaking chemical formulas in order to avoid the existing controls. The need to capture such a wide range of substances, and any that might be invented in the future, necessitated a broad definition. The definition is in two parts: the trigger and the effects. The main effect of psychoactive substances is on a person’s brain, the major part of the central nervous system. By speeding up or slowing down activity here, psychoactive substances cause an alteration in an individual’s state of consciousness.
Amendments 7 and 8 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, seek to restrict the definition of a psychoactive substance so that it captures only synthetic substances. The nature of this market and of experience to date shows that producers of new psychoactive substances are constantly looking for loopholes to exploit, thereby fuelling their reckless trade. There are any number of natural products—such as fly agaric mushrooms and salvia divinorum—that are openly on sale in head shops and elsewhere which are far from safe though they are not banned under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The Bill should give us a proportionate way of dealing with these substances as well.
Amendment 9 seeks to import the definition of a psychoactive substance—