MR VERNON COAKER, PROFESSOR SIR MICHAEL RAWLINS AND PROFESSOR DAVID NUTT

22 NOVEMBER 2006

  Q20  Chairman: We are not disagreeing with that, but you said in response to Des that in fact it was the evidence of your drugs policy that actually made you abandon the review and what we are saying is: is that evidence available?

  Mr Coaker: If I could refer you again to the evidence in the introduction of paragraph 11, when we reflected on the success that the drugs strategy was having, in the evidence that we sent back to you on paragraph 11 where there is a whole range of different indicators with respect to enforcement of the law and with respect to numbers into treatment, these were the sorts of things we saw were happening that we reflected on and decided, as a consequence of that, that the drugs strategy was the thing that we needed to concentrate on.

  Q21  Dr Turner: Sir Michael, when you came to see us before, you said that you welcomed the prospect of a review of the classification system.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: Yes.

  Q22  Dr Turner: Have you changed your mind on that or are you concerned that in fact it is not open to review?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: No. As I said, I think, last time, the classification system had been around for 35 years and I thought it was worthwhile having another look at it and seeing if there was an alternative or perhaps an even better way, but it is a judgment we make on these sorts of things and the present system ain't broke, we have been using it and if the judgment of the Home Secretary is that he would rather keep it as it is, that is fine, that is the judgment. I do have to say what I said last time, that advisory committees like the ACMD, we look at the evidence, but we also have to take judgments. Every scientific advisory committee I have ever sat on, and I have sat on many, always has to make judgments alongside the evidence. The evidence is never complete on anything and, as William Blake said, "God forbid that we base our decisions solely on algebra", and that was 200 years ago.

  Q23  Dr Turner: That is very nicely put. Can you think of any particular flaws or objections to the present system and any ways or different approaches we could take?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: Well, a judgment has to be made about the balance with all the harm. Decisions can be informed by the sort of analysis that David Nutt has developed, but at the end of the day one still has to make a judgment about which category one puts them in, and that has to be a judgment and I am unashamed to admit that it is a judgment. Another group of people on another day might well come to a different judgment, and I accept that too, that is the nature of judgments, so it is judgments based on the science, but there is still a judgmental element to it.

  Q24  Dr Turner: Since we have Professor Nutt here, do you have any comments on the system? Would you wish to see the system reviewed and, if so, can you give any pointers?

  Professor Nutt: Yes, I think I would say a few things. I think it is important to know that those of us who work in this area continually are interested in finding an optimal system and we have looked, as you did in your own report to us where you looked across the world at different systems in different countries, we have done that. The Runciman Committee did that, did a very systematic review, and always in our dialogue with colleagues in other countries, we look to find a system which might be better. I think if there was obviously a system which was an improvement, then we would surely recommend it. I think at present there is no clear direction in terms of a system of structuring drug harm classification which is obviously better than what we have at present which is, I think, why the Runciman Committee came to that conclusion, and that is the problem. Now, beyond that, there are interesting issues, issues that you yourselves picked up in relating to drugs which are not in the classification system, like alcohol, for instance. These present huge problems to groups like ours who are looking at illegal drugs, but they clearly are very relevant to society as a whole, and a system which at least brought those into consideration, I think, would be something that we might aspire to. But again it is not obvious just how you do that with the current situation of those drugs in relation to illegal drugs.

  Dr Turner: It would be a little awkward, would it not, if you looked at alcohol and classified it as a Class A as that would just be penalising everybody in the country?

  Q25  Dr Harris: Perhaps I could just clarify something with Sir Michael. The ACMD has never formally discussed this question. Is that right?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: That is right.

  Q26  Dr Harris: I find it a little strange because the paper that we referred to, of which Professor Nutt was the lead author, said, "The current classification system has evolved in an unsystematic way from somewhat arbitrary foundations with seemingly little scientific basis". Now, that is quite a strong comment, I think, in your paper.

  Professor Nutt: I will just see if it is still in the final version.

  Chairman: It is the version you gave to us.

  Q27  Dr Harris: That is quite a strong view and—

  Professor Nutt: Yes, and I think it is true though, is it not?

  Q28  Dr Harris: Yes, and it is a strong view and Sir Michael said he agreed that the Home Secretary was correct, and he says, "I think it right that the Home Secretary is relooking at it". That was your view. Another member of the committee, although he gave evidence as Chief Executive of Drugscope, said, "I think the fact that the Home Secretary has announced a review is very welcome". Now, given all those comments coming from members of the ACMD, in a sense it is a little surprising, given that you as Chairman expressed a view, that you have not actually discussed it, given that it is a key issue and in fact that the Minister has just said that the view not to do it was based on evidence. Now, you are the key person and the key committee involved in giving evidence, so I am a little surprised that you have not discussed it as a committee before giving your view. It might have been helpful.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: Actually we have not met since then, since your report, because the Council only meets twice a year. I think the issue is whether there is obviously a better scheme. Now, as Professor Nutt has said, different countries have enacted all sorts of schemes and some countries have a sort of nine- or ten-points scale.

  Q29  Dr Harris: I am sorry, I do want to go down the path that Des has explored already because I am sure you have a view as to what other countries do, but do you think it would have been worthwhile the ACMD discussing this so that you could have fed into the evidence base that the Minister just quoted on this key question, and it is a key question and the Home Secretary has made a big fuss about it previously and is now not doing so, not to do it? That is my question.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: No, it is a political judgment which has to be made about some of these sorts of things and I think that is a perfectly appropriate one for the Home Secretary and ministers to make. If they want to keep and retain the present system, okay.

  Q30  Chairman: But you do not agree with it?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: It is a judgment and it is not black and white.

  Q31  Chairman: What is your view?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: I would have personally liked to have had a review to see if there was anything better, but a judgment has been made and I am more than happy to accept somebody else's judgment on these things and leave it as it is.

  Q32  Dr Harris: But it was not just a political judgment. The Minister has just said, I heard him, I asked the question, that it was based on evidence and I am not disputing that. If it is partly based on evidence and members' political judgment on top, which our recent report says is quite okay, then your job, I would have thought, is to feed in on these key questions your view of the evidence. I am just surprised. Do you think, at least in retrospect, that it might have been a useful exercise even if you did not do it, that it might have been a useful exercise?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: I am not sure actually, I am not sure. I have not thought about it in that context, but I am not sure.

  Q33  Dr Harris: Then, on that basis, I would put it to you that you are wrong to reject outright the suggestion that it might have been useful because all you can say is that you are not sure whether it would have been useful, yet your response to us rejects outright the accusation that we made, and you might not accept it, that there was a dereliction of duty by failing to recommend, ie consider and then provide evidence, that the classification system be reviewed, not changed, reviewed. You are quite forthright in response to us and now you are prevaricating.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: You stated that there had been a dereliction of our duty not to have considered it before.

  Q34  Chairman: Yes.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: I reject that, then as now. What you are now asking is should we have done it since your report and in relationship to the decision of the Minister. That, I think, is what you are saying now because it is two slightly separate things: one, should we have done it in the past; and, secondly, should we have done it in response to a request from the Minister.

  Q35  Dr Harris: Given what Professor Nutt is on record as saying and Professor Blakemore and Martin Barnes and you about welcoming the review, then I would have thought that you in particular, as Chairman of the ACMD because you were not commenting in any other capacity, would have discussed it, that at least there was an argument. That is why I question whether you are right to reject outright our suggestion that it would have been useful had you discussed it because then you would have been in a position to feed in evidence upon which the Minister could then make a political judgment.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: Yes, but our response was to your recommendation 42 where you had accused the Council of a dereliction of duty. That is strong language, strong language, and I resent it actually and reject it.

  Chairman: Well, we are going to move on because we are not going to resolve that matter.

  Q36  Mr Flello: I would like to move on to the deterrent effect that classification may or may not have. In the report, the Committee explored whether placing drugs in a higher class has some kind of a deterrent effect. Vernon, I would like to ask what the purpose of the drug classification system is in deterrence. Should the classification of a drug be used to send out signals about its use?

  Mr Coaker: As I say, we believe that the drug classification system, as it currently stands, is well understood, the tripartite system of A, B and C. We think that it is well recognised by people that Class As are generally understood to be the most serious drugs, the most harmful drugs, whether based on individual harm or social harm, and we think it is, therefore, appropriate to actually then couple that with penalties. We do not believe that decoupling the classification system from penalties is the appropriate way forward. We have accepted in the report that that is our belief and that is the judgment that we make, and what we have said is that we recognise, in response to what the Committee have said, that we ought to do more research with respect to that deterrent effect and that is one of the recommendations, I think, the Committee made—

  Q37  Chairman: Yes.

  Mr Coaker:— and one of the things that we said we need to do more research on, and again the Committee itself recognised that when talking, I think, about Professor Nutt's own matrix, that it is as much an art as a science. The Committee itself put that in the report and these are judgments that people make as well taking into account all of the various things. I am not trying to evade the question on that because we have accepted that we need to do some more research with respect to that deterrent effect, but I just pose the question again as a rhetorical question: if nobody believes that it actually acts as a deterrent, why was there so much universal acceptance by everybody about moving crystal meth from B to A?

  Q38  Mr Flello: I just want to go back to the issue of decoupling the penalties later on, but in terms of sending out the signal, do you feel, and I accept that you will be looking further into this issue, that there is a difference in the perception about the deterrent effect or otherwise between perhaps the wider community and drug-users themselves?

  Mr Coaker: I think that is certainly a part of what we need to look at, what deters drug-users as well as the wider community. I think the wider community understand that and I think drug-users understand it. Again I think in some of the surveys we have done with offenders, it is apparent, although not hugely apparent, that some notice is taken of the class of a drug, particularly with respect to Class A drugs, and I think there is an OCJ report or something which actually concludes that,[1] so I think there is an effect on drug-misusers and there is an impact on the wider community. Again this is partly why I referred to the evidence we had about the drugs strategy, that the evidence we have had, talking to drug-misusers, is the importance of treatment, the importance of the availability of support, the importance of trying to have a wrap-around service which we know we need to develop, and they have talked about that. That is why we are saying okay, for the wider community the drug classification may be something that works and maybe for drug-misusers it is the drugs strategy as well which actually informs that debate and helps with that debate, as I say, with respect to the issues which I have just raised.

  Q39 Mr Flello: Can I turn now to Professor Rawlins. In terms of if a drug is in Class A, do you feel that that is a deterrent or an attraction to a drug-user?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: My instincts say it is and of course particularly dealers, who I think are the real people one needs to get to, also recognise the difference in the penalties for Class A drugs and of course, because the penalties are so much more severe, the price of Class A drugs tends to be a lot higher. I am not sure whether the Committee has seen the latest British Crime Survey report on drug-use, but since 1998 Class A drugs generally have either declined or remained stable, the reported use of them, with one exception and that is cocaine powder, so I am not sure if that answers your question or not, but I will try again if it does not.