Written Evidence submitted by Mr Tim-Jake Gluckman

PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES INQUIRY; STATEMENT FOR THE H.A.S.C.

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

We should actively monitor the success and the failures of the new repressive government line, and if it fails, admit – where it is clear – to its inadequacy. We should  be able to perceive upsides of NPS whereas the announcement of this HASC Inquiry was formulated in one-sided negative terms. At the stroke of a pen a healthy legal market that could be regulated will be criminalised and pushed underground.

We should establish bench marks to assess what the outcomes of this Bill will be. I have indicated what some of these benchmarks could be:

Amount of displacement from NPS to other substances incl. alcohol;

Monitoring sales of O.T.C. products and education about them;

Setting up round-table for all players in the nightlife scene;

More drug checking as done by Prof. Measham, and groups in other countries;

Learning from NPS users through websites as Bluelight;

Supporting peer group interventions in the Rave & Party scene (e.g. Eve & Rave)

Avoiding credibility gap by accurate warnings e.g. re synthetic cannabis;

Ensuring A&E depts. have the latest information re substances and antidotes;

Monitoring impact of UK repression on ethnic groups who use substances traditionally (e.g. in Mexico);

Acceptance of people now employed in the legal NPS market;

Recognising entrepreneurial skills of NPS retailers / wholesalers;

Establishing how much tax is currently paid through NPS sales: (VAT, income tax etc.);

Investing much more in education re NPS rather than repression;

Placing emphasis on consumer law rather than criminal justice for substances not covered by the bill; (see ‘Regulate not Repression’). This includes correct packaging, training staff, no sales to minors etc.

2. INTRODUCTION: WHAT WILL BE IMPACT OF A TOTAL BAN?

Rather than repeating what you can read in many other statements by contributors to the HASC, I would prefer to focus more on my own analysis, and tell you what I think you are less likely to read elsewhere. How realistic my ideas are is a question I leave others to judge; what I have written is what I believe to be best practice, and fruitful alternatives to the current hackneyed responses linked to repression.

If we are to understand what resources society will need to cope with the total bans on NPS we first of all need to work out what will probably happen in the market. At one stroke – with the Queen’s signature under the bill – a perfectly legal market will be turned from a white market (with grey areas) into a black market with all its concomitant downsides: e.g. criminal control, difficulty in reaching users, loss of legal employment, displacement of using with probable bingeing on alcohol (as in N Zealand).

3. ONE-SIDED TENOR OF HASC ANNOUNCEMENT: THERE ARE ALSO MANY HEALTHY USERS OF NPS:

In the announcement of this call for evidence, it is stated: “they (NPS) can be extremely damaging to people’s physical and mental health, or even lethal”. They can be: all new developments have potential for upsides and downsides. This is a vague statement with no specific evidence referred to. Many mass media reports of fatalities allegedly caused by NPS later turned out to have quite other causes; often alcohol in large amounts was in play. As Quentin Hailsham once stated, “Hard cases make bad laws.”

In the call for evidence it was nowhere admitted that there could be upsides. Hence it is to be feared that the HASC inquiry will only perceive downsides instead of seeing possible positive features of NPS.

3A.  UNCERTAINTY RE ACCURACY OF  ESTIMATES OF EXTENT OF NPS USE

It was estimated in 2013 that in the UK alone there were over 650 sellers of NPS.[1] Even if the true number in 2015 is only half that number, the number of users they supply is certainly many tens of thousands possibly hundreds of thousands.

There is, however, much uncertainty about how many people take any sort of drugs. The main instrument for this calculation is the CSEW.[2] That survey is only answered BY householders. Given that the 16-24 year old age-group is the most vulnerable,[3] the CSEW obviously misses them as that age-group are unlikely to be householders. Given the level of doubt re anonymity, concerns re surveillance, many drug-users are unwilling to admit to using drugs; this will of course be exacerbated by the NPS Bill.[4]

The number presenting at A&E or at drug services is clearly only a tiny fraction of the total number of users. Yet their needs and wishes are considered completely irrelevant: “Let them drink alcohol!" seems to be the prevailing ethos. This is despite the well-known risks of alcohol to the body’s inner organs, its links to violence etc. Last week I commented on an article[5] in the ‘Herald Scotland’:

‘In yr somewhat one-sided depiction of NPS realitIES, you ignore the fact that the percentage of bad experiences (e.g. ppl presenting at A&E) is a tiny fraction of total users judging by sales. How about having a brief portrait like those of Rory but about sb holding down a job/ bringing up healthy kids etc.? I am certain Crew 2000 cd have introduced you to sb like that.

Is there a hidden agenda here that drugs per se are bad/evil etc?’

4. NPS WILL ACQUIRE NEW ILLEGAL CHARISMA

Drugs will acquire a new illegal charisma; this is the paradoxical affect that making drugs legal and easier to obtain makes them less attractive. The well-known statistics concerning cannabis use by e.g. 16-24 year-olds in the Netherlands compared to e.g. France or the U.K. make very interesting reading. This suggests that the impact of a legal supply is to moderate people’s use: because it is freely available in pharmaceutical quality at fair and competitive price, users of NPS are at present better able to control their own use.

Young people who up till now have been able to obtain NPS made in laboratories, subjected to chemical analysis through e.g. mystery shopping, or media investigations in all EU countries are now going to be thrown into black market situations where in future to obtain those same substances they will have to obtain them from sellers who now by definition are criminals; and who may push Class A drugs.

The prohibition of mephedrone (3.2010) drove it underground - as many people had predicted: this was obviously the likely development after people were unable to sell their products legally; unsurprisingly they got rid of them on the black market.

5. PROBABLE WAVE OF INJECTING OF NPS AT PRESENT NOT INJECTED

This switch from legal to black market in turn led to a wave of hyper-injecting (e.g. 40 times a day) of mephedrone which researchers have investigated; see e.g. Danny Morris video talking about the dangers of mephedrone injecting on the basis of his original research on the topic.[6]

Very likely making all NPS illegal will lead to a similar wave of injecting of NPS; the NHS needs to continue its support of needle exchanges at drug services as well as pharmacies. This has been a successful policy of the NHS in helping to reduce the spread of HCV, HBV and of course HIV.

6. THE DISPLACEMENT STYNDROME

A study was made in N Zealand when BPZ was banned 2008.[7] The authors comment drily that the policy was only successful in so far as the use of BPZ fell rapidly. In other respects, the law had a negative impact on the lives of those who had formerly been using BPZ. Half the users increased their use of other illegal substances with a third drinking more alcohol than they had been before.

One likely impact of the bill will be to shift current users of NPS onto products obtained over the counter (OTC). Those containing pseudo-ephedrine, dextromethorphan (DMP) or codeine are obvious candidates. Let us hope that the government do not respond with yet another round of wholesale repression. This will be one sphere for continuing education (see Section 11) about possible medical dangers, and risks of dependency.

7. EMCDDA & ACMD’S ADEQUATE WARNING SYSTEMS; MUCH MORE DIFFICULT IN FUTURE

Where there are new drugs it is perfectly possible for the EMCDDA and the ACMD to warn about drugs with imminent dangers. For example the report on MT 45 by the EMCDDA,[8] rapidly led to MT-45 being banned in the UK (3.2015) and the ACMD have been instrumental in bans on e.g. mephedrone after assessment of the evidence.[9] They can issue TCDOs an effective tool of control.[10]

At present NPS retailing & wholesaling is fairly transparent. This clarity will inevitably disappear: the NPS scene will become something of a jungle, and more difficult for the ACMD – a uniquely excellent body in the world of drug policy – to assess best practice and policies. There has never been any doubt that the ACMD prefer to look at each drug or drug class individually, to consider the evidence rather than make sweeping generalisations or sweeping (under the carpet) laws.

If all NPS are classified as equally dangerous, a credibility gap will be established; potential users need to be able to identify those substances that really are dangerous e.g. synthetic cannabis in more than tiny doses.

8. COPING WITH OVERDOSES &BAD TRIPS: MORE DRUG CHECKING & INPUT FROM PEER GROUP PROVIDERS

The quality will degenerate into totally regulated; people are goin to be very unsure what they are selling / consuming. One obvious risk that this poses is that they have a ‘bad trip’ and when presenting to A & E, neither they nor the overworked doctors will  know what substance has been taken, and therefore be unsure what the best antidote is.

More work should be done in linking symptoms with antidotes: this will require input from all players in the drug scene. I would like to suggest that Peer Group Providers in the Rave Party scene should also be involved; the best known in Britain is Crew2000 (http://www.crew2000.org.uk/) based in Scotland. It would also be more than ever helpful to support services such as that of Prof. Fiona Measham who does drug-checking at raves and festivals.[11] This may become more than every crucial in helping medical services deal with those acutely impacted by NPS.

Drug checking is widely established in e.g. Switzerland by the Swiss branch of Eve & Rave (http://www.eve-rave.ch/drugchecking-news), and the Netherlands. Given the dangers created by the NPS Bill, it would be a great help if its use were more widespread in the UK.

One of the most interesting examples of drug experts learning from users was the study of the impact of the drug olanzipine used as an antidote to NPS.[12] Digging into such drug underground sites as Bluelight (http://www.bluelight.org/vb/forums/40-Trip-Reports) or Erowid (https://www.erowid.org/) which are recognised often showing more expertise than their well-paid counterparts, it was noted the preferred antidote for NPS is olanzipine. As a result users prepare for NPS use by having that drug to hand as well as benzodiazepines. The study then researched how affective it actually was, and did not dismiss its efficacy pointing out merely that one needs to be aware of possible dangers.

In some continental cities, there are round tables including all players in Night-Life: club-owners, club-goers, police, taxi-drivers, youth workers, social services, drug services, publicans, door staff, associations representing fast-food outlets/ sex workers, etc etc. This would help to improve flows of information concerning Safer Use which will be even more essential after this bill becomes law.[13]

9. PREVENTING ATTACKS ON THE TRADITIONAL LIFESTYLES OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: (THE BUTTERFLY’S WING)

One aspect of this bill which has not been focused on is the misclassification of traditional substances as NPS. One hopes that the final version of the bill will leave these substances out. A very good example of this is Salvia Divinorum (Lamiaceae) which has been used in recreational contexts for some decades but especially in the 20th C1st century. It has traditionally been used for both medicinal and shamanic purposes (typically both together) by the Mazatec Indians.[14]

As a result of the increasing use in the West, the Mexican government has come under pressure from the all-knowing “international community” to make the drug illegal and to criminalise its cultivation, collection and use. This would be a devastating blow to a traditional way of life, one of the most iniquitous affects of the UK government s bill. If it goes through, we should take very care that the Mexican government is also aware that there are other ways of handling these apart from repression.

10. EMPLOYMENT FACTOR: RECOGNISE SKILLS OF SUCCESSFUL DRUG RETAILERS & WHOLESALERS

In the RCP report (see above) a figure of 651 Internet retailers in 2013 is asserted. That is also a significant employment factor. This should be seen as a contribution to a healthy economy: all of these companies should be taxed.[15] That income for the state is a further ground for rescinding or modifying this legislation at the first possible opportunity. The entrepreneurial skill of NPS sellers should be recognised as legitimate business operations, and not dismissed: they were and are selling legal substances.

11. MASSIVE IMBALANCE BETWEEN EDUCATION & ENFORCEMENT

The most obvious of the government is the total imbalance between education and enforcement. Ben Thurman on behalf of the leading provider of education for young people about alcohol and drugs quotes the following figures:

“The UK government already spends £1.5 billion on drug law enforcement each year. A meagre £7 million – less than 1% of the annual spend on enforcement – is invested in drug education strategies.”

He goes on to say that in 2013 and 2014 the Home Office allocated only £180,000 specifically to NPS.[16]

If we use money spent a s a benchmark to measure how much interest the government have – whatever they may claim when pressed on this point – it is not unfair to conclude that this government (like all its predecessors) has shown little political will in educating young people about how to learn to live in a society in which drugs and alcohol are on offer; much rather they obtain more political capital by demonstrating their toughness on drugs irrespective of the middle and long-term implications of those policies: criminalisation, ruining careers and work prospects, alienation of some of the most promising young people who deserve better.

12. REGULATION NOT REPRESSION:

Regulation not repression should be the path forward: tackling NPS issues by consumer laws rather than the criminal justice system. This would also be much cheaper. The Greater Manchester police, for example, at present try to enforce consumer laws e.g.

ensure no large / repeated purchases,

no sales to minors,

that substances are correctly packaged.

Furthermore in my opinion shop sellers could have training in providing advice re harm reduction, could give out literature about the substances they are selling. For online sales, there could be a short set of questions about using drugs sagely; to avoid answers by rote, these could be rotated. If people did not answer correctly, they could still obtain the products but have their attention drawn to gaps in their knowledge re Safer Use.[17]

It is absurd to claim that NPS are e.g. plant food. But this is a matter of consumer protection rather than for the already overworked providers of law enforcement..

13. BE READY TO RE-LEGALISE SOME PROVEN SAFE NPS

Or is that by definition impossible?