Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what evidence they have that prohibition reduces the consumption of psychoactive drugs.

The Government has carefully considered the issue of Psychoactive drugs. Last year the Home Office commissioned an expert panel to consider the issue and approaches to tackling New Psychoactive Substances (NPS).

The NPS expert panel carefully considered the available evidence of different legislative approaches to tackling New Psychoactive Substances. Informed by the evidence on new psychoactive substances and responding to the ease of their availability in the absence of a comprehensive legal framework, the Panel recommended the Government consider a blanket ban similar to the general prohibition approach in Ireland, enacted by their Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Act 2010. Recognising that the legislative approach alone was not a panacea the panel also considered the education, prevention and treatment response to NPS and made a series of comprehensive recommendations. A report by an expert panel in Scotland in February 2015 and a Welsh Government inquiry by the Health and Social Care Committee in the National Assembly for Wales which reported in March 2015 reached similar conclusions.