Cannabis

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have many particular problems in Northern Ireland due to paramilitary activity. Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland have made a fortune out of the misery of others by selling illegal drugs, including cannabis. Has he had a chance to calculate what the impact on the activities of paramilitaries in Northern Ireland would be if cannabis were legalised?

[Paul Flynn]

I have not been to Northern Ireland to discuss this, but I went to the Oireachtas a number of years ago following a report on this issue; there were terrible problems with the criminal market in Dublin, as the hon. Lady will know.

What we are against is the fact that we have a substance of great popularity, used by millions of people, but the market for it is controlled by irresponsible criminals with little regard for the results for customers. They do not pay taxes. We have an empire of criminals building up throughout the world, exploiting their customers. The sensible way forward is to replace that market with one that is run by the state, has strong controls and does as much as it can to keep drugs out of the hands of vulnerable people, including those with mental health problems, the young, pregnant women and so on. No one is asking for free-for-all drug use; we are asking for an intelligent system that can be run and controlled.

It is ludicrous that these drugs should be known as “controlled” drugs when they are totally out of control. I have had constituents come to me and say, “Well, I thought it was legalised anyway.” The police are now very reluctant to arrest for these minor offences. It is many years since a case of someone using cannabis medicinally has been taken to court, because the juries are refusing to convict and it is a waste of everyone’s time, but that is still the law—the law supported by those who are against legalisation here.

If we can take the control of the drugs trade out of the hands of criminals, it will be an all-round improvement. That is what is happening elsewhere in the world. I mentioned the United States, but it is also going on throughout south America. A number of groups have come here recently from Mexico, Honduras and Bolivia to talk with the all-party groups about their revulsion at the drugs state and the terrible effect it has had on their countries. They were the producers, but the problems were in downtown Chicago; the consumers were on the other side. The most serious problems of drug trafficking and warfare involved people in south America.

One major benefit for countries—particularly Mexico—that border the United States, where they have seen the control of drugs taken into the hands of the state, is that there is less trafficking. Fewer drugs are going across the border, which will be a benefit.

[Paul Flynn]

A great deal of good work has been done by the agencies and those who work in this area. The previous MP who ran the all-party group on drug misuse in this country pointed out that there is an establishment of people who are involved and have a vested interest in drug prohibition. He went every year to a group who were helping people with drug problems, but he noticed in his 15 years in Parliament that there were more people coming every year.

Great work is being done, and it will always need to be done to rehabilitate people who are afflicted by drug addiction. One accepts that, but what has taken place in this country and throughout the world in the past 45 years of prohibition is hugely increased drug use. It is going down now, because of the matter to which the Chair referred at the beginning of the sitting: young people are obsessed with the new addiction of playing with their iPhones and iPads. They do not have time to roll a reefer. That is the new addiction, and it has a beneficial effect. That is the fashion throughout the world, and it probably does not do them much harm. The Home Office has admitted that there is no correlation between harsh punishment, harsh penalties and the use of drugs. It is entirely to do with fashion and what young people regard as acceptable and what they regard as naff.

We imagine that we can control what is going on, but we cannot. The whole process is out of control. Holland has given us a fine example over the past 40 years by de-penalising cannabis use. Now and for nearly all that period, cannabis use in Holland has been far less than here in the United Kingdom. There is a good reason for that: people in Holland can go to any coffee shop and have a cannabis cake with their grandmother. Where is the fun in that? They have taken away the allure of forbidden fruit.

In America, groups of young former hippies were sent out to the sticks to deter drug use. At that time, drug use was rampant in cities, but not in rural areas, so these attractive, long-haired hippies went there with guitars and said, “We’ve been subject to degradation. We’ve been through hell. We’ve been through sexual orgies. It was terrible. For goodness sake, don’t do drugs.” Their message was: “Drugs are dangerous. They will upset your parents and destroy your health”—rather forgetting that young people all know that they are immortal. Danger is an attraction, as is upsetting their parents and establishing their own identity, and drug use followed the drug education programme as surely as night follows day. This futile experiment, lasting 45 years, should now come to an end.

Let me give just one example of what has happened. People in America suggested that if cannabis were decriminalised for recreational purposes, there would be all kinds of consequences, but in Colorado and Washington, decriminalisation of recreational drugs took place a year ago, and the disasters have not occurred. The evidence shows no spike in cannabis use among young people and no increase in road fatalities. What there has been, of course, is a large reduction in the criminal market because the state now runs 60% of the market. In Colorado, they are nearing control. If the state government decides that problems are emerging, they can change things, because they pull the levers. They can decide what happens, instead of allowing criminals to use their drugs freely and sell them irresponsibly to build up their criminal networks, as happens in Northern Ireland, or to sell them to people whose mental health is fragile.

[Lady Hermon]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for prompting me to get to my feet again by mentioning Northern Ireland; it is so kind of him. In response to my first intervention, he referred to his first trip to Dublin, but not to Northern Ireland. As he knows, cannabis is still illegal in the Republic of Ireland. Will he give some attention to the thought that, although cannabis remains illegal in the Republic of Ireland, we have a very porous border, and it is easy to move into Northern Ireland and therefore into the rest of the UK? What does he believe the impact would be of changing the status of cannabis in the UK but not in the Republic of Ireland?

[Paul Flynn]

Similar concerns were expressed about the Netherlands and other countries when the laws were changed. It was said that there would be drug tourism and that people would flock across, and there have been examples of that, but one hopes that the world will gradually come to its senses, through a gradual process—it is happening now—and that laws can be synchronous and work in that way, as happens in many other areas. My trip to the Oireachtas happened because I was writing a report for the Council of Europe at the time. I was representing the United Kingdom, rather than my own opinions on the matter. What we saw in Dublin with regard to criminality was horrendous. It was very much a replay of what happened in the ’20s in America, and we have yet to learn that lesson.

One of the interventions reminded me of our attitude in this place. We have been talking about this for many years, and I prize the memory of one debate in which the Opposition spokesman and the Minister in charge had to leave. They could not stay for the full period because they needed to go outside the Chamber for a fix—they were both tobacco addicts. They did not see any contradiction in denouncing the use of an addictive drug in the Chamber, for young people, while they were themselves addicted to another drug.

I will not mention any names, but I recall another Conservative MP saying to me, “I just can’t understand it. I went to a prison and my constituent told me he wanted to get hold of some paracetamol for his toothache. He was told, ‘You can’t get that until you go and see the doctor tomorrow morning. You might be supplied with it then.’” The MP’s constituent made this point: “I can go out of this cell now and within 10 minutes, I can get heroin, cocaine”—Mr Evans, you might recall this story—“and cannabis as well”, because they were freely available. Can we persuade the Government to face up to the abject failure that has occurred over this long period?

I have spoken for longer than I intended, and I know that there are many other Members here with a long history in this subject who want to speak. I particularly welcome the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for the Green party, and the Liberal Democrat Members who—I read in my copy of The Guardian this morning—are going to take up this issue in a more serious way. No party in this House has contributed more to this subject and the cause of reform than the Liberal Democrats. It is sad to see that a number of them lost out in the last election, particularly the former Member for Cambridge and the former Member for Lewes. Those people have perhaps been punished by the press and possibly the public for having been caught in possession of an intelligent idea, but they deserve credit from this House. I look forward to hearing what Members have to say.

I shall conclude my remarks with a story about a person called Elizabeth Brice, who campaigned under the name of Clare Hodges. Sadly, she died in 2011. Elizabeth Brice led protest after protest here, and she single-handedly convinced the Belgian Government in 1998 to change their law on medicinal cannabis. She was an extremely gifted woman; she was a producer for a television company and a classicist. Among her more bizarre achievements, she was translating the Noddy books into Latin, of which I have a prized copy. I mention her story, although I am grateful to all the people who have written to me recently—there is no way that I can do justice to the number of letters and submissions I have received.

Elizabeth wrote:

“Multiple Sclerosis is a cruel disease. You develop it when you’re young and healthy, and slowly but surely you lose all your faculties, abilities and functions. Nowadays you can expect to live your full life span often until you are completely dependent. And of course this is a very depressing prospect…all the future seemed to hold was deteriorating health and no medicines that really helped.

When I did try cannabis, the physical relief was almost immediate. The tension in my spine and bladder was eased, and I slept well. I was comfortable with my body for the first time in years. But, just as important, I felt happy that there was something, after all, that could help me. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from me.”

She stated:

“Cannabis helps my body relax. I function and move much easier. The physical effects are very clear. It is not just a vague feeling of well-being.”

On one of her visits to the House of Commons, she committed a serious crime. Out on the Terrace, she asked for a cup of hot water, to which she added a green substance—I am sure that the staff were curious about what those green specks were in the cup afterwards. She had taken herbal cannabis in the House of Commons. The law at the moment says that she could be put in prison for five years, for the crime of seeking relief from pain. Does anyone believe that that law is sensible? That law is an ass. For so long, this House has been held back from full-scale reform by the timidity of Members of Parliament, because of a reluctance to reform for fear of being attacked by the media and losing votes. Now is the time for compassion and courage.

[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Lady Hermon]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene as he is coming to the end of his contribution. He rightly emphasises looking at the evidence. May I invite him—my right hon. friend from a different party—to revise what he suggested earlier in his contribution? I am not a member of the Government, nor do I wish to be, but he cited a percentage of the Government who he said were users of cannabis, and I do not think that he would want that percentage to stay on the record without correction, without evidence.

[Norman Lamb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. Of course, my suggestion was speculation, but very many young people—about a third—choose to take cannabis at some stage. As the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden said earlier, that percentage of the population choosing to use cannabis starts to undermine the rule of law. Perhaps the percentage is a third and not a half, but one can make a reasonable judgment that a significant proportion of this Government will have used cannabis at some point. That is a reasonable assumption to make, yet the Government appear to be comfortable with other people in this country ending up with a criminal record. That is what I find distasteful and that is what has to be challenged. We need policy based on evidence, which focuses on health and not criminal justice.