Examination of Witnesses (Questions 372-379)
PROFESSOR COLIN
BLAKEMORE, PROFESSOR
JOHN STRANG
AND MR
ANDY HAYMAN
26 APRIL 2006
Q372 Chairman: Good morning. Can I welcome
everyone to this session which is looking at the classification
of illegal drugs within an overall inquiry which is looking at
scientific advice to government in terms of policy information.
Can I particularly welcome our Panel One: Professor Colin Blakemore,
the Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council and Professor
of Physiology at Oxford University; Professor John Strang, Professor
in Addiction Research and Director of the National Addiction Centre
and Mr Andy Hayman, the Chair of the Association of Chief Police
Officers Drugs Committee. Welcome to you all, thank you very much
for giving us your time. Could I start by asking you, Professor
Blakemore, you said in 2004 of the ABC classification system for
illegal drugs: "It is antiquated and reflects the prejudices
and misconceptions of an era in which drugs were placed in arbitrary
categories with notable, often illogical, consequences".
That was in 2004; do you stand by that comment?
Professor Blakemore: There are
sometimes useful reasons for making what, with hindsight, might
seem to be pejorative or hyperbolic statements, but I stand by
much of what I said, although some of the adjectives could be
attenuated. To call a system antiquated of course does not necessarily
mean criticising it.
Q373 Chairman: But "illogical
consequences" is pretty severe.
Professor Blakemore: The Monarchy,
the House of Lords and Shakespeare's plays might be called antiquated
by some people but they would not necessarily be dismissed by
everybody. I think the logic on which the misuse of drugs classification
is based is impeccable. The logic is that drugs should be classified
according to their potential for harm and that classification
should then guide particularly the judiciary in its attitude towards
policing and sentencing.
Q374 Chairman: You no longer think
it is illogical.
Professor Blakemore: I think the
basis is logical, but I am not sure of the evidence on which drugs
were placed in those arbitrary groups—they are essentially
arbitrary; there is nothing that rationally could provide evidence
of sharp boundaries in a scale of harm from drugs. I think that
not all the evidence was taken into account in the initial classification
and subsequent emergence of evidence has not easily been incorporated
in re-classification.
Q375 Chairman: Professor Strang,
do you accept Colin Blakemore's original hyperbole?
Professor Strang: It seems to
me that people at a previous time have tried to place drugs in
what they think is a ranking of the levels of concern which should
be attached to them. Periodically it seems proper for us to re-visit
that and decide whether the ranking is correct and also then the
way in which we organise our responsibilities. Being concerned
about the potential for harm we wanted to look at ways in which
a harm that is otherwise going to hit individuals in society might
be deflected by the system. I would have thought that in any system
from yesteryear one is bound to see things that you want to change.
Personally I was pleased to be reminded about your overall process,
about looking at how science might or ought to be contributing
to the process of government. I am not sure whether that is the
correct terminology. It does seem to me that there are many examples
where what you or me have is inherited and what we are wanting
to know as well is a whether a move in one direction or another
direction would bring benefit or more harm. That is a more urgent
question, rather than whether people happened to get it right
a number of years ago. What I crucially want to know is that when
changes have occurred, when minor adjustments have been made to
the classification—not just to the classification, to the
way in which the law is applied, because the law may be an ass
but it is a sometimes subtle ass—that it is not just what
the documents say, it is the way in which is applied. We have
lots of examples in the UK as well as overseas (but let us just
stick with the UK) where we have changed the law or we have changed
the way in which the law is applied. Examples in the last couple
of decades would be that we have re-classified certain drugs.
Q376 Chairman: We will come onto
that specifically; we want to know why we have done some of those
things. The basic premise that I would like to start with this
morning is: is the ABC category as exists now as illogical and
is it as arbitrary as Professor Blakemore said. What is your opinion?
Professor Strang: I am being much
more moderate about the view. I am not wishing to defend the precise
drugs and I probably would not see it as my area of expertise.
What I would say is that I think we are ill informed about whether
the changes make it better or worse. We have changed the detail
of it and we do not actually know whether that has made the situation
better or worse, so changes we have made, what I would expect
of government in science, is to be able to tell me: So you have
made that change five years ago . . .
Q377 Chairman: We would like to know
why; what was the evidence on which it was based?
Professor Strang: Yes. Not only
would we like to know the evidence of why but in particular did
the effects that you expected happen? Even if your evidence base
was rather weak and arbitrary, and it seems to me that the political
process sometimes needs to make decisions with a pace that does
not fit science and the gathering of evidence, but when a decision
is made I would expect to know three years down the line had the
trajectory carried on going up or had it taken off or had it got
worse and for it to be sufficiently transparent that if it had
got worse you would say that we made what we thought was a correct
decision, we now see that it actually had a contrary effect.
Q378 Chairman: Mr Hayman, very briefly
do you feel the current system of the ABC classification is antiquated?
Mr Hayman: If you want me to be
very brief, no. If you want me to elaborate on that I don't actually
know what the problem is in this discussion. Why do we have that
classification? Is it because we want something very precise or
is because we want something as a rough guide? If we want something
very precise then it is a problem; if we want a rough guide it
is not a problem.
Q379 Chairman: What do you think
the purpose should be then?
Mr Hayman: From a police perspective
it only does a couple of things really. It puts certain drugs
in a category which then has certain powers associated to that
category and also it gives a bit of a steer which normally comes
from government or from the local policing priority as to what
the priority would be for policing those particular drugs.
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