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The government is to review the laws relating to
new psychoactive substances, the Home Office has
announced, in a bid to ‘clamp down on the trade in
potentially fatally drugs’.
The review will have input from ‘law enforcement,
science, health and academia’ and study international
and other evidence, with findings to be presented in the
spring. It will then ‘make a clear recommendation for an
effective and sustainable UK-wide legislative response’
to the new drugs, with options including ‘the expansion
of legislation to ensure police and law enforcement
agencies have better tailored powers’.
‘The coalition government is determined to clamp
down on the reckless trade in so-called “legal highs”,
which has tragically already claimed the lives of far too
many young people in our country,’ said crime prevention
minister Norman Baker. ‘Despite being marketed as legal
alternatives to banned drugs, users cannot be sure of
what they contain and the impact they will have on their
health. Nor can they even be sure that they are legal. Our
review will consider how current legislation can be better
tailored to enable the police and law enforcement officers
to combat this dangerous trade and ensure those
involved in breaking the law are brought to justice.’
DrugScope said it ‘cautiously’ welcomed the review
but added that legislation alone was not sufficient to
address the problem. ‘This is an attempt by the Home
Office to bolster current enforcement efforts and to see
what other legislative options could be brought to bear
on this new and complex drug situation,’ said outgoing
chief executive Martin Barnes. ‘It is vital that education
and information efforts are significantly enhanced in order
to make the public – especially young people – more
aware of the risks posed by experimenting with
substances of unknown content and origin. These
substances are not labelled ‘research chemicals’ by
sellers for nothing.’
The Home Office has also announced that two groups
of substances under a temporary banning order – NBOMe
and Benzofuran compounds – will become class A and B
drugs respectively, and has issued guidance to local
authorities on the options available for addressing the
issue of ‘head shops’ selling new psychoactive drugs.
Meanwhile, a report from the Home Affairs Committee
has also called for improved education on new
psychoactive substances in schools and colleges and
states that the police and other law enforcement bodies
have ‘failed to understand’ the impact of the new drugs.
It wants to see legislation that shifts ‘the evidential
responsibility’ of proving the safety of a substance onto
the seller and also recommends that medical practices
begin anonymous data collection to establish how many
patients have become addicted to prescription drugs.
‘We are facing an epidemic of psychoactive
substances in the UK with deaths increasing by 79 per
cent in the last year,’ said committee chair Keith Vaz.
‘New versions of these “legal highs” are being produced
at the rate of at least one a week, yet it has taken the
government a year to produce five pages of guidance on
the use of alternative legislation.’
Guidance for local authorities on taking action against
head shops selling new psychoactive substances at
www.gov.uk
Drugs: new psychoactive substances and prescription
drugs at www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-
a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/
See page 14 for a profile of new psychoactive drugs
expert Dr John Ramsey
Opium production in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Myanmar,
Thailand and Laos rose by 22 per cent in 2013, according
to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC).
Production has now been increasing for seven
consecutive years, says
Southeast Asia opium survey 2013
,
and rose by more than 25 per cent in Myanmar, the
world’s second largest grower of opium poppies after
Afghanistan. ‘Villagers threatened with food insecurity
and poverty need sustainable economic alternatives or
they will continue, out of desperation, to grow opium as a
cash crop,’ said UNODC Myanmar country manager Jason
Eligh. Afghanistan also saw a record high opium crop in
2013, up by 36 per cent on the previous year as farmers
attempt to ‘shore up their assets’ prior to this year’s
planned withdrawal of international troops (
DDN
,
December 2013, page 5).
Southeast Asia opium survey 2013 at www.unodc.org
GREEN FUTURE
Transform has launched a new publication
on regulating legal markets for non-
medical use of cannabis.
How to regulate
cannabis: a practical guide
looks at the
challenges of developing and
implementing an effective approach, with
the regulation debate now firmly part of
the mainstream according to co-author
Steve Rolles. ‘With so many countries
leading the way, it is likely that the rest of
the world will follow within the next ten
years,’ he said. Uruguay approved a bill to
legalise the growing, sale and
consumption of cannabis in December,
with the law expected to come into force
in the spring, a decision UNODC called
‘unfortunate’.
Available at www.tdpf.org.uk
STARK CHOICES
US drug defendants are ‘routinely’
threatened with ‘extraordinarily severe’
prison sentences by prosecutors to make
them plead guilty and waive their right to
trial, according to report from Human
Rights Watch. The average sentence for
federal drug offenders who pled guilty was
just under five and a half years compared
to 16 years for those convicted after trial,
the report found. ‘Prosecutors give drug
defendants a so-called choice – in the
most egregious cases, the choice can be
to plead guilty to 10 years or risk life
without parole by going to trial,’ said the
report’s author Jamie Fellner. ‘This is
coercion pure and simple.’
An offer you
can’t refuse: how US federal prosecutors
force drug defendants to plead guilty at
www.hrw.org
THE ROAD AHEAD
The Home Office has published its second
review of the drug strategy, highlighting the
priorities of ‘reducing demand, restricting
supply and building recovery’. Meanwhile,
PHE has issued a new guide to reviewing
treatment, based on supplementary
evidence from Professor John Strang’s
recovery-orientated drug treatment expert
group.
Delivering within a new landscape
and Medications in recovery: best practice
in reviewing treatment at www.gov.uk
LIFE BEGINS AT 50
Substance misuse charity Blenheim is
celebrating its 50th anniversary by
releasing 50 first-person stories from
people who have turned their lives around.
A new story will be available every Monday
throughout 2014 at
www.blenheim50.wordpress.com
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| January 2014
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Round-up
NEWS IN BRIEF
‘Golden triangle’ opium
production up 22 per cent
Government launches
‘legal high’ review
Injecting drug use among under-18s remains a global data
‘blind spot’, according to a report from Harm Reduction
International (HRI).
Young people who inject drugs are ill-informed about
the risks, less likely to access treatment and have ‘specific
developmental, social and environmental vulnerabilities’,
says
Injecting drug use among under-18s: a snapshot of
available data
.
There is no global population size estimate for the
number of under-18s who inject, says the document, while
the legal status of being a minor also raises challenges in
terms of developing targeted harm reduction interventions.
‘Too often younger drug users are “hidden in plain sight” –
we know they are there but do not know enough about
their needs and risks,’ says Greg Ramm of Save the Children
in the report’s foreword. ‘This cannot continue.’
Injecting drug use among under-18s: a snapshot of
available data at www.ihra.net
Injecting young people a
‘blind spot’