My Lords, I shall not follow the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, down the road of horseracing because I have a confession to make, which is that I have never been in a betting shop in my life as far as I know—unless I was taken in as a very young child. I have three points to make. The first is the question of what sport is, because it is vital to the amendment—which I will be supporting. Darts and snooker are considered sports. They are therefore covered by any legislation relating to sport. You have only to watch “Strictly Come Dancing”, however, to know that a lot more physical activity is involved in dancing than in either darts or snooker, yet dancing is not covered by this legislation because it is not considered a sport.
Secondly, there are differences in the drugs taken by snooker players, for instance. A snooker player would be banned if he took a beta blocker, because a beta blocker slows the heart down, slows the pulse down and slows everything down, but if any other athlete took it, it might be for medical purposes—although it would not be to his benefit or advantage to do so.
Thirdly, I gather that under this country’s present doping laws recreational drugs are banned by all sporting bodies and the UK sports drugs authority. In some countries, however, it is legal to take, for instance, cannabis—to be honest, I am one of those who think it should be legal in this country as well; it should be part and parcel of the legal system that we allow people to take cannabis. But it would be banned. If it is illegal—this question may be one for the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, directly—and an athlete comes to this country to take part in an international event, be it football or whatever, from a country where it is legal to take cannabis, and if he has taken cannabis in the last 24 hours and it shows up in a drugs test, will he be banned from taking part in that event? Some countries allow it. Why are recreational drugs part of that authority anyway? It is a police matter in this country, not a matter for sporting bodies, therefore we ought to take recreational drugs out of the equation altogether.