Clause 7 - Testing for presence of class A drugs

Part of Drugs Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:22 pm on 1 February 2005.

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Photo of John Mann John Mann Labour, Bassetlaw 3:22, 1 February 2005

The Minister should reflect on whether the powers that the police require for dealing with amphetamine-type drugs will be unnecessarily hindered. Drug testing in police custody suites is a welcome move by the Home Office; I believe that Nottinghamshire is the only police authority that tests for drugs at all its police stations. The ability to monitor what offenders are taking is proving to be extremely valuable and will become more so over time because it allows us to determine trends of offending and reoffending and the types and combinations of drugs being used. Such data are valuable to the police, to the health services and to us as legislators. Restricting testing under the Bill simply to class A drugs will at some stage require amendment.

I shall repeat examples that I cited earlier. South-east Asia is the best example, but more relevant is the growth in synthetic drugs in eastern Europe, which are—I hesitate to use the term mushrooming—increasingly prevalent. Their increase in supply is quite dramatic, as are the associated problems, but the easiest examples to consider are Australia and New Zealand, where amphetamine-type drugs have become the problematic drugs of choice. They are the ones in which the organised gangs deal, because they can literally be cooked up in the back of a van as the gangs are driving around. No one can tell whether we will have exactly the same problems. We can, however, say that Australia and New Zealand did not have that problem four years ago, but they do now. The Minister should reflect on whether the Bill is unduly restrictive, hence my suggestion that class B drugs should be included.