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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. It is not for the hon. Member to determine who should speak. An hon. Member may catch my eye.
10.15 pm
Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) for requesting this timely debate, and for allowing me to participate, albeit briefly. I listened with interest to her comments, and agree with them all.
There are no safe drugs, legal or illegal. Society must weigh the advantages of the use of drugs against the disadvantages. Ecstasy, MDMA is an amphetaminewith the chemical name 3,4-methylenedioxy-- methylamphetamine, from where the abbreviation comes. It is almost certainly neurotoxic: the report to which my hon. Friend referred contains evidence to support that view, and I have been preaching that for many years.
When I told my students that, if they took Ecstasy--probably some did--it could be neurotoxic, they expressed great surprise and asked me what "neurotoxic" meant. It means damage to the central nervous system that is considered irreversible. I hope that, as a result of students being told about the health risks, those who took Ecstasy were deterred from taking it ever again.
If a given age group took Ecstasy over a prolonged period, it is conceivable that at some time in the future a generation of people would exhibit Alzheimer-type symptoms at a much earlier age than is usual now. However, I do not think that that is probable, because the taking of Ecstasy is a phase in young people's lives. The November edition of The Big Issue, which is sold in London, suggests that the drug culture on the rave scene is changing, and that people are moving off Ecstasy. Goodness knows what will be the next rave drug. Fashions change, and we must keep an eye on that.
Ecstasy's dehydration effects are well known. I condemn those nightclubs and rave clubs that turn off the natural water taps. That is happening on quite a scale across Britain. It has happened in my own town, and Bolton council has taken action against clubs that have turned off the mains water at source to force young people to pay more than £2 for bottled water at the bar. I draw the Minister's attention to that practice, because it must be stopped.
I want to refer briefly to the impurity of street drugs. It is often not the MDMA that causes the problem, including death in a very few cases; it is mainly the impurities that are present in street drugs. Such drugs are made under poor conditions, often in back-street garages, with no analytical control: certainly not the analytical control that is prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry. I do not think that young people who buy street drugs
realise what they are buying. In most cases, they are buying not a pure drug, but highly contaminated materials from irresponsible people.
I implore the Minister to study the harm-reduction programmes that other countries have undertaken, including the Netherlands, which is the leader in this area. I refer to simple, analytical kits, which are cheap, so that users can prevent themselves from being damaged.
The Minister for Public Health (Ms Tessa Jowell):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on securing an opportunity to raise these important issues. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) for his contribution.
The Government are well aware of the effects of drug misuse not only on the drug takers and, often, their families but on society as a whole. One of our manifesto commitments was to appoint an anti-drugs supremo to co-ordinate our battle against drugs and as a symbol of our commitment to tackle the modern menace of drugs in many communities. We have fulfilled that commitment by appointing Keith Hellawell as the UK anti-drugs co-ordinator and Mike Trace as his deputy. That is not an end in itself, and across government, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, we will work closely with Mr. Hellawell and Mr. Trace to develop our strategy to tackle the misuse of drugs.
While awaiting the arrival of Mr. Hellawell and Mr. Trace, we have continued to undertake activity in relation to a range of problems. A wide range of drug initiatives is under way. Some 79 innovative local anti-drugs projects have been supported through the drugs challenge fund. Plans for a reduction in front-line customs staff have been reversed; proposals have been brought forward for a drug testing treatment order; and a cross-departmental review is under way to assess the resources that are available for action against drugs. That is evidence of the Government's recognition that effective action against the threat posed by drugs to our young people and to society as a whole needs to be waged on a number of fronts.
Before I turn to the specific issues that my hon. Friend has raised, I should like to put in context much of the media speculation about the extent of drug misuse in this country. Drug misuse is not the normal majority pattern among young people. Authoritative figures published in September from the 1996 British crime survey showing that while about half of our young people have taken prohibited drugs in their lifetimes, only one in seven could be said to take drugs on anything remotely like a regular basis. That is a similar picture to the one of two years ago, but it is no grounds for complacency, because the figures are still worryingly high. However, it is important to put the issue in context.
Many young people who are offered drugs choose to decline. The Health Education Authority commissioned a survey of 5,000 young people in the autumn of 1995 and found that, while 70 per cent., reported that they had been offered drugs at some time in their lives, only 45 per cent. had actually taken them. That is a hopeful sign that young people are capable of making informed choices. It underlines the importance of our powerful health education and health promotion messages about the risks of drug taking.
I shall now deal with the impact of drug taking and its link to crime. Another aspect of drug misuse that many choose to overlook is that, as well as its effect on the person who takes drugs, it has wide-ranging effects on the society in which we live. Many people are damaged. Estimates for the level of drug-related crime vary. They include one by West Yorkshire police that up to 70 per cent. of acquisitive crime is drug-related. I am sure that my hon. Friends would testify to that from their constituency experience. We all know that crimes have victims. They may be those whose homes are burgled, and businesses also experience loss due to crime. Every one of those victims would be only too willing to testify to the damage caused to society by the effects of drug misuse.
Then there is the fear of crime--its unquantifiable effect on many people, rendering elderly people, in particular, prisoners in their own homes. Reducing drug-related crime is a key objective for police forces in the coming year. The Government will pilot a drug testing and treatment order to enable courts to impose treatment for seriously addicted offenders, and we shall make widely available what we learn from the work of local projects in implementing and evaluating drug interventions at different points in the criminal justice system and in different parts of the United Kingdom.
In that context, I strongly endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston about the importance of proceeding on the basis of evidence, understanding what works and acting on the basis of what we know to be effective.
Hon. Members may be aware that, at the end of October, I announced that health authorities would receive more than £41 million next year for drug treatment services. That is an extra £3 million, and represents a real-terms increase of 8 per cent. over the 1997-98 figure. It will allow the national health service to continue the development of effective treatment services for drug misusers. It will also enable health authorities to build on their existing services and to develop them on the lines of carefully tested guidance sent out by the Department earlier this year on purchasing effective treatment and care for drug misusers, again concentrating heavily on building on good practice.
I take on board the concern that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East raised about young people in clubs who may have taken Ecstasy and have to buy water, rather than be able to drink it from the tap. That is a dangerous practice on which we want to take action. It is another example of a specific step that must be taken as part of a comprehensive approach to tackling drugs. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will give the whole drugs programme high priority during our presidency of the European Union next year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston talked about the long-term effects of Ecstasy, referring to research, reported in the New Scientist, at the university of Baltimore. She suggested that Ecstasy use permanently damaged brain function. Although we have yet to study the detail of that research, its conclusions are broadly in line with existing knowledge about Ecstasy's dangers. It causes massive release of serotonin and inhibits the brain nerve cells' ability to absorb the serotonin, so that the drug's effect is both increased and prolonged. It gives a boost well outside the range of normal emotions, accounting for the intense empathy and mood change while under the influence of the drug.
Of course we know that those short-term mood changes can have long-term, damaging persistent effects. We need to make that clear in ways that they will accept to young people who choose to risk taking Ecstasy; they need to understand that we are on their side.
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