Clause 1 - Closure notice
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
11:30 am
Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman makes his point well, but there is not the same scale of problem with class A drugs and class C drugs. In a sense, that is what the Bill is examining. We are introducing the power for the first time, and we hope that it will not be necessary to use it extensively. However, when it is necessary, it will clearly need to be used to crack down on crack houses. There may be a call sometime in the future, if cannabis is still a class C drug, to take that into account, but a step is being taken to deal with the most severe end of the drugs problem.
It is clear that class A drugs, with their addictiveness, lead to the associated problems of theft to fund people's habit. We do not see that associated so much with cannabis. The problem of prostitution is also associated with class A drugs, and the premises in question may have a dual use. We do
not see that with class C drugs. I suspect that a range of drugs, from classes A, B and C, are found in some of the premises that the hon. Member for Gedling is talking about.