Clause 21 - Inclusion of mushrooms containing
Drugs Bill
3:15 pm
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
I will check that. One of the questions is whether a person is picking the mushrooms. I understand that as soon as someone starts picking the mushrooms the active ingredient that creates psilocin starts to formulate itself, although psilocybin is present in fresh and prepared mushrooms. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on that, because he is right that we need to clarify the circumstances, while dealing with what we think has become a problem for law enforcement and the courts.
There has been a lot of debate about what exactly the harms and potency of such mushrooms are. Perhaps the name ''magic mushrooms'' makes them sound quite harmless, but they are hallucinogenic. Psilocin and psilocybin are class A drugs because they are similar in effect to LSD and have hallucinogenic qualities. They can trigger psychosis and are very harmful to those with mental illness, and can also be harmful to those with a heart condition. Because of the hallucinogenic effects, users are vulnerable to self-harm while under the influence and, as with LSD, those using mushrooms may experience negative flashbacks.
The international position on mushrooms is as follows. The 1971 United Nations convention on psychotropic substances places both psilocin and LSD in schedule 1, the highest level of control. There is an international consensus that such substances present serious harms. For those reasons it is our view that magic mushrooms should remain a class A drug.
I think that the hon. Gentleman asked why fresh magic mushrooms, which are not a product and not prepared, seem to be excluded from the 1971 Act. The short answer is that we are not really sure and we do not even know if that was the intention. However, we can say that the problem has since worsened. Thinking back over the past 30 years, I can only say that marketing fresh mushrooms in the new way was perhaps not a problem then and that it was felt that defining the drug as a prepared product was enough, without creating problems to do with naturally growing, fresh magic mushrooms.
That said, although magic mushrooms have for a number of decades not been a huge problem, the emergence of 400 outlets in the past few years is an example of the direction in which we might be headed. We must be mindful of that. We do not know for certain, but the problem may have been less of an issue when the 1971 Act was drafted and not at the forefront of the drafters' minds then.