Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of exposure to online drug marketing on teenage drug use in West Dorset.

The Government has not made an assessment of the potential impact of online drug marketing on drug use among young people. We are committed to protecting young people from the harms of drug use through a range of universal and targeted prevention activity and are using the recent report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) ‘A Whole-System Response to Drug Prevention in the UK’ to inform our approach.

Furthermore, the Government is taking a co-ordinated approach to tackle harmful online content, which includes illegal drugs. This strategy combines law enforcement activity, stronger engagement with technology companies, improved education to raise awareness of risks and harms, and the introduction of measures that require internet companies to take responsibility for content on their platforms.

This includes strengthening the regulatory framework to address online harms. The unlawful sale of controlled drugs online is a priority offence under the illegal content duties in the Online Safety Act 2023. In-scope providers are legally required to implement measures to protect their users and to remove illegal content from their platforms. Ofcom, as the independent regulator of the Act, is closely monitoring compliance with the regime.