My Lords, when we talk about “banning”, we mean the substance being used to commit an offence under the Bill. There are two ways of reaching that conclusion. If you see someone taking a tablet or a substance and suddenly his mental state has been altered, cause and effect is likely to be demonstrated. The second way is that if you know the nature and qualities of substances, when you analyse the substance you may be able to do it that way too.
The important thing, however, is that it is not a question of the substance not being banned until you discover it: the definition applies right from the beginning. As the Minister said, when the Bill becomes law, substances with that character become the possible ways of committing the offence. The question of whether a particular substance is of that character can, I think, be approached in these two different ways, according to what is convenient in the circumstances of the individual case.