Psychoactive Substances Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2016-01-20
Topic: Health
Lyn Carol Brown (Labour, Centre-left): Again, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The Home Affairs Committee concluded that poppers ought to be exempt from the ban. I hope that the Committee’s Chair, who has been in his place for most of the debate, will inform the House of his views on the Home Secretary’s response to his Committee’s recommendations, because I will be listening with great interest Poppers are not a new drug that has recently appeared on the market and that we know nothing about. As I have said, they were first created in the 19th century, so they are not a new chemical compound that has been synthetically produced to mimic the effects of already banned substances. There is a good argument to be made that poppers are not only relatively harmless, but are not the sort of "new" psychoactive substance that the Bill is intended to deal with We feel that a ban on poppers, even for a short period, would in fact bring about harms; it would take the sale of poppers out of this successful regulatory regime and users might end up being pushed underground, where unscrupulous and unregulated sellers, who are in it for the profit, are more likely to provide harmful compounds and possibly drive users towards harder and more harmful drugs. If it is likely that the review will take between four and six months—it might be even longer—that means four to six months of confusion, potential prosecutions and a real danger of under-the-counter sales of poppers that will not be subject to the same regulation. Even a temporary ban would create a real danger of harm. Will the Minister therefore consider a temporary exemption for poppers until the MHRA and the ACMD report back I understand that the Government have told the National AIDS Trust that the fear that I have outlined is unfounded, as a similar ban in Ireland has not led to an increase in popper-related harms. However, the National AIDS Trust has been informed by the gay men’s health service in Ireland’s Health Service Executive that poppers are still openly sold in Ireland’s sex shops and saunas, effectively placing poppers on the exemption list. If that is the case, we would not expect to see any harms associated with pushing popper use underground in Ireland, because the poppers market is still, in effect, out in the open. It therefore cannot be inferred from the situation in Ireland that there would be no health harms as a result of a ban on poppers here in the UK Additionally, I fear that including poppers in the ban might undermine the Bill and make it far more difficult to get across the vital message that psychoactive substances can be, and often are, very dangerous. There is a risk that the Bill will become synonymous with a ban on poppers, a substance that is thought to be relatively harmless, and that as a result the public will come to believe that all the substances banned by the Bill are relatively harmless. That would be an absolute disaster, and it would completely undermine the important work that the Bill is seeking to do Finally, given that poppers are widely used but relatively harmless, we fear that enforcing a ban would waste scarce police resources. Enforcing this legislation will be difficult enough without disproportionate police time being spent on enforcing a ban on a relatively harmless drug. If in future any evidence to the contrary is produced, then poppers should be removed from the exempted list or controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 The Minister said in Committee that it would be sensible for the Government to take stock of the evidence presented about poppers so that the House could decide on Report. I urge him to place poppers on the exempt list until the MHRA and the ACMD have considered the evidence and reported back. I will be listening intently to what he has to say.