Hansard

I, too, am grateful to the minister for arranging this debate and for providing an update on how the Scottish Government is seeking to confront the challenges posed by new psychoactive substances. Any opportunity to shed a little more light on this shadowy but increasingly prevalent industry is welcome.

A decade ago the creation of new drugs was much rarer, which afforded authorities the opportunity to properly assess the risk. Now, their emergence at a record pace of more than one a week, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, demands greater attention. The centre points out that

“the speed with which new drugs appear means that, as soon as one new psychoactive substance is identified by the authorities and controlled, a replacement is already on the shelves.”

The Scottish Drugs Forum has described the problem as a “moving target”.

Legal variants of existing drug compounds are being manufactured on a commercial scale for sale through so-called head shops, the internet, illicit sellers and reportedly even from convenience stores and petrol stations, as we heard from the minister. The ease with which they can be procured is worrying. Many of them come in professional-looking packaging with branding to make them appear more legitimate; others provide no information at all. However, one thing is certain: consumers do not know what they are buying. The legality, strength, purity and effect of the substances can vary significantly, even among what appears to be the same product.

The experience of the drugs service Crew 2000 suggests that user dependency is becoming more common, that many people underestimate the dosage and that, as we heard, the majority mix new psychoactive substances with other substances such as alcohol, making them more potent.

My colleagues from the north-east Alex Johnstone and Graeme Dey mentioned the two head shops in Arbroath that have been the subject of local controversy and attracted significant local media attention. That is partly because the most recent shop is situated just two doors away from a drop-in centre operated by St Andrew’s church for people who are contending with alcohol or drug addiction. As Alex Johnstone said, local residents have responded by forming the group Arbroath against legal highs.

I understand that such shops represent only a small corner of the market, but they are unmistakable. Given that cigarettes are now hidden from public view, residents are understandably asking whether it is right that such shops are able openly to display and promote new psychoactive substances and drugs paraphernalia. The evidence must lead us to ask how we can best protect the public. How do we ensure that the law is not rendered ineffective by what strikes me as a reckless and unpredictable market?

I turn to the Scottish Government’s approach. The concerted effort to use the term “new psychoactive substances” or “NPS” instead of “legal highs” strikes me as apt. The label “legal highs” gives the substances more credibility than they should have as it suggests that products are acceptable or safe when that is not the reality. Consumers should be under no illusions. Many of the products have not been properly tested. In the absence of dependable information on new drugs, education and early intervention play an increasingly important role in enabling people to identify the dangers and understand for themselves that they are putting their health at serious risk if they do not know what harmful substances the products contain.

I welcome and support the Scottish Government’s commitment to working with its partners, including the know the score campaign and Police Scotland, to raise awareness, particularly among young people. The inclusion of new psychoactive substances in the drug-related death statistics is good a step forward, but it is important that we gather more evidence. We need to understand what draws people to these substances. In the context of Scotland’s problems with drugs and alcohol, it would also be valuable to establish to what extent new psychoactive substances interact with other substances and whether they may be so-called gateway drugs.

The minister mentioned trading standards. It would be helpful for the Scottish Government to follow the UK Government’s example and produce guidance for local authorities on enforcing trading standards legislation with regard to shops that operate in this area.

There is no doubt that it is essential to take a multi-agency approach but, as others have said, neither Scotland nor the UK can deal with the problem in isolation, as the industry transcends national boundaries. We should work closely with our UK and EU partners to share knowledge, anticipate new threats, maximise the authorities’ ability to conduct investigative forensic analysis and research, determine risk and build our capacity to confront the challenge.

The coalition government has already put in place the forensic early warning system and it has banned some 200 substances, but I am pleased that the Liberal Democrat Minister of State for Crime Prevention, Norman Baker, is going further and leading a Home Office review to examine how other countries’ regimes differ from ours. I understand that it will report back later this year, and I am sure that the Scottish Government awaits its findings with interest, as I do. We have a responsibility continually to monitor what is working elsewhere, explore alternatives and consider whether there are more effective ways in which to respond.

The minister’s approach is sound. We should have practical, sustainable policy that is shaped by the advice of professionals, from scientists to youth workers and health professionals to the police, focused on prevention and harm reduction and enhanced through collaboration and innovation, and it must be informed and led by the evidence of what works, not guesswork or populism.