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Mr. Tim Rathbone (Lewes): My hon. Friend has kindly allowed me to say a few words here. First, I praise him for bringing up this horrible subject in an Adjournment debate. Secondly, I want to comment on the
fact that the debate is described on the Order Paper as being about "soft drugs". The House has heard my hon. Friend's description of what Ecstasy can do. In no way can such a drug be described as a soft drug. There is no such thing as a soft drug. Drugs do terrible harm and my hon. Friend is absolutely correct to draw the House's attention to the harm that Ecstasy can do. I am glad that that is recognised in the Government's White Paper and in their activities to educate young people to keep away from all drugs. I am sure that my hon. Friend praises that.
Mr. Evans: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. He is right to say that many people consider Ecstasy to be a soft drug. It is, of course, a class A drug, but the perception is that it is different from other hard drugs. It is not, for all the reasons that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) have given.
I shall now suggest one or two areas in which the Government will, I hope, seriously consider taking further action, along with the excellent programme they have to tackle drugs on the wider scale. I know that we have the drugs help line and the crimestoppers line. I congratulate the Daily Mirror which has given £10,000 to the crimestoppers line to encourage people to give information about those who are pushing drugs. That is commendable and I hope that other newspapers will follow that lead.
However, many people cannot remember the numbers of the drugs help line or the crimestoppers line. There is probably more chance of getting through to the cones hot line than of getting through to the other numbers. I suggest that just as we have a three-digit number for accidents and emergencies, we should have a drugs hotline number of three digits--perhaps 911--which everybody could remember. That would be extremely useful for people in clubs and pubs who could then use the number to give information about people pushing drugs.
There should be better rewards for those who give information that leads to the prosecution of those who push drugs in our pubs and clubs. In the vast majority of cases, people give the information freely because they know that it could help to save the lives of their friends. However, those who have, for example, information from the drugs underworld may be lured by the possibility of getting at least some money for giving information that will put the criminals behind bars and will lead to many more drugs being destroyed.
There is also the problem of drugs being distributed in pubs and clubs. I praise the work of the British Entertainment and Discotheque Association in producing a booklet which is aimed at club and pub owners so that they can spot some of the telltale signs of whether drugs are being pushed or used in their clubs. Unfortunately, not every pub owner and club owner is responsible. We should give support to the police and new guidelines to the courts. If it is obvious that the owners of the pubs and clubs are turning a blind eye to what is going on in their premises and if the people who are using them cannot be guaranteed to be safe, the pubs and clubs should be closed down.
There should be more research into the long-term ill-effects of taking Ecstasy and other so-called "designer" drugs. We must get across to young people the fact that it is not simply that people die--that is tragic enough, as
one can see from the families and friends who are left behind--but that there are long-term effects on those who take the drugs. They are under a lot of pressure. I believe that in 10 or 15 years' time--perhaps a lot sooner than that--we shall see the side-effects of taking Ecstasy and how appalling the consequences can be to individuals and their families. When we have that information, we must get it into clubs, pubs, youth clubs, night clubs and schools so that it reaches the youth culture, which has put Ecstasy on such a pedestal that it is considered different from other drugs. Then we will be able to expose Ecstasy for what it is. We must however remember that the vast majority of young people go to night clubs and pubs and enjoy themselves without taking any Ecstasy whatever, and long may that continue.
I congratulate Radio 1 on the campaigns that it regularly runs. It has a mass youth audience and it is able to reach the people to whom we need to talk. I understand that it is starting another campaign in October. Given the problem of the number of people taking so-called designer drugs, I hope that it will consider either bringing forward that campaign or running another one directed specifically at so-called designer drugs.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. John Bowis):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) on bringing this subject to the Floor of the House and on the way in which he has addressed it--packing his facts and ideas into a short space of time. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) for his pertinent intervention.
I suppose that, if one is looking for a text for this debate, one need look no further than the words spoken on behalf of the young girl Helen Cousins--they were not spoken by her, because she could not speak--who survived the horror of Ecstasy. Her words to us and other young people were:
We should seek to promote that lesson, today and always.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley referred to the tragic death of Daniel Ashton in Blackpool, and to Leah Betts, whose death continues to weigh heavily on all our minds. As he also said, in my borough of Wandsworth last weekend, I was called out because another tragedy had struck. This time, the young Andreas Bouzis from the Greek Cypriot community died as a result of taking Ecstasy at a club.
Those individual tragedies are salutary reminders to us all of the misery and havoc that drugs can bring to the lives of ordinary, close-loving families. The blight of drugs is a worldwide phenomenon. It wrecks lives--all too often young lives--it undermines families, causing untold heartache and worry for parents, brothers and sisters of its victims when it strikes, and of course it shakes communities through crime and the fear of crime.
That is why the Prime Minister has made it clear that tackling the drugs problem is a priority for the Government. The White Paper "Tackling Drugs
Together", which we published in May and was signed by five Ministers from Departments across the Government, set out a three-year strategy to bring all the weapons available to bear on the drugs problem.
For my Department, one of the key tasks in the strategy is to help stop young people experimenting with drugs in the first place--to persuade those who are dabbling at the edges of the drugs scene to stop and seek safer pleasures elsewhere, and to plant the seeds of doubt in those who are misusing drugs regularly.
One of the first tasks is to tackle the comforting distinction to which my hon. Friends have referred: the so-called distinction between soft and hard drugs. It gives the misleading and dangerously reassuring message to misusers that the so-called recreational drugs can be taken with impunity. The word "soft" does not carry the associations of the needle, the crack house, addiction, prostitution and disease, which are conjured up by heroin addicts or crack cocaine users. Among the great majority of young people, that hard drug scene is simply seen as sad and pathetic, and a world distant from their own experience.
It would be foolish to suggest that all drugs are of equal harm. That is not the Government's view. There is a spectrum of harm on various levels. Some drugs, such as heroin, are harmful because of their addictive qualities and the life style that often flows from addiction. Some are harmful because of the way in which they are administered--whether ingested, injected or inhaled. Inhaling butane can and does kill. Injecting drugs risks transmission of blood-borne diseases. Taking pills of dubious content is a lottery.
No serious commentator is suggesting that smoking cannabis equates with injecting heroin, but it is naive to say that soft drugs are risk-free. In fact, so-called soft drugs do carry risks, which is why they remain proscribed. Ecstasy, to which my hon. Friend referred in particular, is a case in point.
The law clearly regards Ecstasy as a hard drug. It has been classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and its illicit use is subject to the strictest penalties. As it is a class A drug, those in possession of Ecstasy can be imprisoned for up to seven years, and those trafficking in it can be imprisoned for life.
My hon. Friend suggested that sentences should be tougher. No doubt the courts will take note of the points he made, but he will be aware that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has announced radical new proposals on sentencing. They recognise that persistent drug dealers are a menace to society, deserving of long stretches in prison. My right hon. and learned Friend has proposed that there should be a stiff minimum sentence for persistent dealers. I, too, want to draw attention to the crimestoppers initiative and its "Say no and phone" campaign to encourage information about dealers.
As for clubs which turn a blind eye to people dealing or misusing drugs, licensing authorities have powers to revoke the entertainment licence of any establishment that does not meet the conditions of that licence. I would expect them to do so in such circumstances.
Although science, Government and misusers still know relatively little about Ecstasy and its effects, what we do know argues clearly against any description of the drug as "soft". It can cause psychological dependence.
Misusers may experience irritability, depression, insomnia or hypothermia after the initial effects have worn off. Feelings of paranoia are not uncommon, and cases of paranoid psychosis have been reported. There is also evidence of an association between Ecstasy use and liver damage.
My Department has been working--as my hon. Friend asked us--on expanding our understanding of the drug. Dr. John Henry, of the national poisons unit at Guy's, a leading expert on the toxic effects of Ecstasy, has been particularly helpful. We are learning of syndromes associated with the drug, such as the repetitive behaviour to which my hon. Friend referred. I understand that one individual obsessively smoked hundreds of cigarettes in the space of hours, leading to death through traumatic damage to his respiratory system. Others may do the same when drinking water. What is clear is that, as knowledge expands, it is knowledge about risks, not benefits.
The content of these illicitly manufactured tablets is highly variable, with fly-by-night chemists in far-off places producing pills made up of a range of chemicals. The effects are correspondingly variable. People who take the drug do not know what they have taken until it has taken effect and it is too late.
Finally, we are all aware of the tragic deaths that have been linked to this drug. Again, we still have much to learn about the drug's toxicity, but symptoms attributed to Ecstasy-related deaths include convulsions, dilated pupils, very low blood pressure, accelerated heart rate, high temperature and coma. Death through heart failure is known to have occurred, but most deaths have been caused by respiratory collapse resulting from blood coagulating in the lungs. So much, then, for the "soft" drug label.
My hon. Friend has urged us to send a message, and the key aim for Government is to arm both young people and their parents with the facts about drugs--the health risks, the risks of addiction, the legal risks, the risk of damaging relationships with friends and families and the risk to future careers. We cannot simply state the risks and then walk away from the problem: we also need to give young people the skills they need to be able to make informed and responsible decisions to resist drugs misuse. Over the next three years, the Department of Health will be co-ordinating publicity campaigns and developing and improving access to materials aimed at motivating young people to resist drug misuse.
My hon. Friend has referred to the drugs helpline, and he may have seen or heard the advertisements promoting it. Calls to the service are free and confidential, and lines are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The helpline number--for my hon. Friend's benefit--is 0800 77 66 00.
The staff who run the helpline have a good knowledge of drug misuse issues and can refer those callers who need specialist help to agencies that can provide the right advice and support. I would urge anyone who wants to know more or who is worried about drugs misuse by a friend or a family member to contact the helpline.
My hon. Friend raised the possibility of a new three-figure drugs hotline number for emergencies. The helpline is an advice line, and callers who are faced with an emergency are advised to dial 999 immediately--a caller to another three-figure number would be given the same advice. The early signs are that the people are using the longer number--20,000 calls were answered in
November alone. I will, however, bear in mind my hon. Friend's suggestion when we are considering the evaluation of the helpline in the spring. Meanwhile, the number is 0800 77 66 00.
Misusers and those at risk of misuse are, of course, a key focus of our campaigns, but we are also addressing the needs of parents. I am acutely aware of the powerlessness that parents can sometimes feel in the face of drug misuse or the suspicion of drugs misuse in their family. The fear and anguish that drugs misuse can cause to them is immeasurable.
I know that hon Members will wish to join me in paying tribute to the parents of Leah Betts. Their dignity in such tragic circumstances, and their determination to prevent other families from suffering as they have, has been remarkable. We have seen no less courage and dignity from the Cousins and Bouzis families.
The aim of our campaigns for parents has been to help parents tackle drugs issues with their children, to give practical advice on how to approach such a sensitive issue,
to help them recognise the signs of drugs misuse or solvent abuse in their children, to tell parents where they can go for more help or information, and to inform them about the drugs their children might be misusing and the language that young people use to talk about them. The demand for this literature has been remarkable. There is clearly a thirst for knowledge about drugs among parents, and we will continue to work to meet that need.
"Ecstasy is not worth the dance with death."
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