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Mr. Flynn: Will the hon. Lady explain why every political party in Holland, including the Christian Democrats, the liberals and the socialists, are in favour of continuing with the drugs policy?
Mrs. Gillan: No; I am not a member of any of those parties, so I cannot explain to the hon. Gentleman--but I can give him another international example of somewhere that changed its mind.
In 1975, Alaska decriminalised the use of cannabis at home and in other private places. In support of decriminalisation, it was argued that use would not increase, that cannabis was not a gateway drug, and that crime would decrease, because cannabis was a "peacemaker" drug. The latter argument persuaded the police to back decriminalisation.
In 1989, the United States national survey of high school seniors found that the use of marijuana in the past month had been 17 per cent. nationally, but 45 per cent. in Alaska. Between 1988 and 1990, an enormous number of Alaskans were committed to state-funded treatment programmes, with marijuana and hashish as their prime substances of abuse. Trafficking increased too, and the heavy increase in health and social costs, as well as the increase in the use of other drugs and the escalation of crime, led to a referendum in 1990 which, with police support, rescinded the law. That is a matter of fact, which graphically explains how an experiment in legalising cannabis proved disastrous.
I am worried that the Government seem to be taking us down the road of closer and closer harmonisation with Europe. I would like the Minister, when he replies to the debate, to assure the House that he has no intention of harmonising this country with Holland in that respect, and that there is no danger of cannabis coffee shops appearing on our streets. I want a firm assurance that integration with Europe will stop at that point, if nowhere else.
My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) both mentioned Customs and Excise. In the international fight against the drug traffickers, Customs and Excise are in the front line. I meant the Minister to take seriously what I said in my earlier intervention--he must give an assurance to the House that there will be no cuts in Customs and Excise.
Customs and Excise staff work in difficult conditions, and their international co-operation and intelligence services are extremely valuable. Indeed, their intelligence operation is looked up to throughout the world. It has good results, and its annual report for 1997-98 gives an overview of its performance on drug trafficking and how it has achieved its targets, whether in preventing the importation of drugs or dismantling smuggling operations. The amounts realised against confiscation orders far exceeded the targets that had been set. All the targets were achieved or exceeded, bar one. I hope that the Minister will reconsider those targets and increase them, and also increase the resources for achieving them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham mentioned crop substitution. Some years ago, I visited a companyin Penn in my constituency in Buckinghamshirecalled Agropharm. It produces insecticides from chrysanthemums which are used as insect repellents and in the formulation of human head and body lice shampoos and lotions. Pyrethrins are natural products and the company emphasises the use of organic products. The
insecticide is used on large gatherings of people who may be at risk from disease and, as a naturally occurring compound, it causes no problems. It is an ideal substitute for organophosphate compounds, which have been widely criticised and are in the news again this week.
The chrysanthemum can grow in similar conditions to the poppy plant. We know that one of the problems in drying up the drugs trade is the amount of income that is derived from the sale of the poppies by poor families in remote areas. How much research and resources are put into examining the possibility of crop substitution? Agropharm has experienced shortages of the raw material it needs to fill its orders and has to buy chrysanthemums from abroad, but I suspect that few, if any, resources are put into crop substitution. Will the Minister undertake to devote resources to crop substitution and does he agree that crop substitution has a role to play in the war against drugs?
Dr. Iddon:
One of the main drugs in use in clinical practice is morphine, especially for terminal patients. It is a complex molecule that is too difficult to synthesise. Unfortunately, it comes from the opium poppy. Has the hon. Lady considered that point? I spent 12 years on research into non-addictive analgesic drugs as replacements for morphine. That is the difficulty with eradicating the opium poppy.
Mrs. Gillan:
I know that the hon. Gentleman is a distinguished chemist, and I take his point. The poppy can be grown for medical purposes, but the quantities grown at the moment far exceed that required. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to examine the possibilities of crop substitution to help those families who are tied to the drugs barons in south America, for example. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that I do not advocate the total destruction of the poppy and that I acknowledge the benefits that come from its derivatives. However, I want the option of crop substitution to be examined seriously, especially by the Government, given the worldwide shortage a couple of years ago of the raw material needed by Agropharm.
Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West):
The most dangerous killer drug in Britain is tobacco, and the drug that involves more people in crime--and especially in crimes of violence--than any other is alcohol. Our children and grandchildren are 100 times more likely to die from the use of legal drugs than from illegal drugs, and they are 10 times more likely to die from the use of medicinal drugs than from illegal drugs. Paracetamol kills three times as many people as heroin. The worst examples of drug abuse in Britain are in care homes for the elderly, where neuroleptic drugs are vastly overused. There are many terrible examples of drug abuse, but this morning's debate concentrates only on illegal drugs.
Are the illegal drugs the most addictive and dangerous of all? They are nothing of the sort. Some are far less addictive and dangerous than others that are generally available. We concentrate on the illegal drugs for one reason--prohibition, from which derive all the dangers, the crimes and the profits associated with drugs.
One optimistic development took place yesterday, when the 100th Member of Parliament signed early-day motion 651 asking for the legalisation of cannabis for medicinal use. That is an enormous leap forward: six years ago, only 13 hon. Members signed an almost identical motion. The debate is developing, and this is by the far the best discussion of the matter in the House since 1987. The Government appear to have decided that cannabis will be allowed to be used for medicinal purposes, a proposal supported by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable). It is not a question of if, but of when. I think that that is quite right.
Speaking as a chemist, I do not want to wait for five or 10 years or however long it takes before it is determined which ingredient in cannabis is beneficial. Such a result might not be confirmed in my lifetime, but natural cannabis has been used and trialled for 3,000 years and by tens of millions of people. Any serious side effects would have been discovered centuries ago.
People who suffer the spasms of multiple sclerosis find relief only in the use of medicinal cannabis. The same is true for people suffering the awful side effects of chemotherapy. They feel nausea for days, and it is so debilitating that they no longer want to live. Many of the chemical drugs that they take mimic the effects of secondary cancer. A House of Lords Committee has recommended that cannabis should be treated in the same way that morphine and heroin are treated--that it should be allowed to be prescribed under certain conditions.
Carol Howard came to the House to make hon. Members aware of the plight of her daughter who, at the age of 28, was dying of cancer and who wanted to communicate with her mother in the precious few days that were left to her. The chemical drugs that alleviated the effects of chemotherapy had left her in a confused state and she could not communicate. Using cannabis, however, she was lucid. Her mother told me that she got cannabis on the streets for her daughter. Which of us would not have done the same for a loved one? Yet, constantly, Governments refuse to act.
A Bill will come before the House on 23 July. It makes no great change to the law. It could be enacted overnight, providing what the House of Lords Committee asked for.
Mrs. Ann Winterton:
The hon. Gentleman makes his case with great passion, but will he comment on the scientific evidence? In 1992, the National Institute for Neurological Disorders reported that no scientific studies had shown marijuana to have had beneficial effects on multiple sclerosis patients. In 1994, research by Greenberg et al. concluded that
"marijuana smoking impairs coordination and balance in patients with spastic MS."
In addition, a National Cancer Institute report stated that newer anti-emetic drugs, such as Ondansetron, had been shown to be more useful than THC as a first-line therapy.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that scientific experiments have not proven his case? If they had, the Government would have listened.
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