Meeting of the Parliament 06 February 2014
As other members have said, the issue is complex. It is fair to say that, if there were a simple solution to it, we would probably have arrived at it by now. Nonetheless, I hope to offer some suggestions of how we might tackle new psychoactive substances.
I noted the report that the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee produced in December, which spoke about there being an epidemic of new psychoactive substances and outlined a range of points on which the select committee wanted the Home Office—because, obviously, it has the powers on drugs law—to take action. I am sure that the Scottish Government will be consulted at all times during that process.
My colleague Graeme Dey mentioned head shops. He was correct to highlight that there is a difficulty in cracking down on such shops, but I recently noted reports in the Aberdeen Evening Express of action that Police Scotland took against at least one of those premises in the city of Aberdeen. There are a number of such premises in Aberdeen, including at least one in my constituency.
As has been identified, the difficulty is that some, but not all, of the substances to which we are referring are often found within, or are predominant components of, items that can be purchased legally in other ways. Therefore, simply to ban the chemical compound would not necessarily solve the problem and may lead to other problems in other areas. It is not quite as simple as banning a certain chemical compound, because that can have a knock-on effect on items that are perfectly legally available already. To come on to where Parliament perhaps has some legislative competence on the issue, we need to consider whether regulation can be put in place, particularly through licensing legislation.
The other aspect, besides the argument about banning chemical compounds, is the paraphernalia that head shops sell. As others have said, although what they sell is probably more commonly associated with use of illegal drugs, it also includes paraphernalia that could—I emphasise “could”—be used for legitimate purposes.
Perhaps considering whether licensing legislation could be applied to such premises or the products that are sold in them might allow greater scrutiny of their operations, much tighter controls by the police and more regular visits by the police and trading standards officers without the need for tip-offs on activity, or other leads to follow. It would be part of the normal licensing renewal regime.
That would also allow the opportunity to consider whether burdens could be placed on the distributors of the products—for example, a requirement to ensure that they are confident that a product that they are selling will be used responsibly. When we license people to sell alcohol, we assume that they will take the necessary steps to ensure that the people who purchase alcohol are of the correct age to purchase alcohol and that they will not distribute that alcohol to people who are underage once they have purchased it. Such elements could be built into legislation. I hope that the minister will consider that.
A more difficult issue is online sales, which my colleague, Willie Coffey, and Claire Baker mentioned. This is not a new issue, nor is it unique to the problem that we are discussing. As Claire Baker and Alison McInnes rightly identified, it will require that work be done locally, around these islands and across the international stage in Europe and beyond.
It is worth taking the opportunity to apply pressure to internet service providers to ensure that they think about how that content is accessed. Willie Coffey spoke about the fact that such websites are blocked on his server. Other servers might not have that safeguard in place, and controls might need to be applied by the user. Again, we need to think about that and determine whether pressure can be applied to internet service providers to ensure that they think about how they regulate the content that is being made available to the people who sign up to their service.
We also need to be cognisant of the impact and role of social media. We must be cognisant not just of the welcome role that they will play in promotion of the Scottish Government’s message or how they have brought together people who are concerned about the issue—as in Arbroath, as was highlighted by Graeme Dey and Alex Johnstone—but of how they are used to promote and share information on new psychoactive substances and where and how they can be obtained. We need to examine how that is being done and think about applying pressure to social media providers to ensure that they are aware that their sites are being used in that way, and to suggest to them that they need to think about how they regulate the content that is being uploaded to their forums.
Work is being done in the north-east with schools, the police and local authorities working together to raise awareness. We have to ensure that we are vigilant throughout the process. There is a fine balance to be struck between raising awareness of the dangers and avoiding raising awareness of the availability. That also needs to be factored in.
There is cross-party consensus on the issue, which is welcome. If we work together, we will reach some form of resolution.
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