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

22 NOVEMBER 2006

  Q60  Dr Turner: So will you, Vernon, consider commissioning this research?

  Mr Coaker: We will always consider it. I cannot make any categorical judgments on these things, but we will always consider these sorts of reports. It is actually the EMCDDA, this report out tomorrow. Do not ask me to say exactly what that stands for. Actually it is the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

  Q61  Chairman: Just before we leave this and move on to Robert, I actually find this exchange quite disturbing because you, Professor Nutt, have clearly stated that there is inadequate research and to actually say, as you have done a few moments ago, that, in terms of the effect on the brain of ecstasy, there is no definitive research either been commissioned or carried out, I find that quite an alarming statement to make, and I think it is a very honest one, if I might say. It flies in the face of what the Minister has said in his response to us when we made the comment that UK investment into addiction research is woefully inadequate. Your response to us was, "The Government rejects the assertion that addiction research is woefully inadequate. Significant research has been undertaken by the Home Office et al". There is a real issue there where your technical adviser, Professor Nutt, is saying it is woefully inadequate and you are saying that you are rejecting that. That worries me.

  Mr Coaker: The point that we have made, and I am not sure Professor Nutt said it was woefully inadequate as a general comment about the whole of research, and correct me again if I am wrong, but it was with respect to ecstasy, I think, the point. What we reject is that it is woefully inadequate across the whole of government. What we have accepted is that there are issues where more research is needed and again, in trying to be helpful in responding to the Committee, we will look at—

  Q62  Chairman: In terms of methylamphetamine, in terms of magic mushrooms, in terms of ecstasy and in terms of cannabis addiction, can you point to a single study that the Home Office has commissioned, an in-depth study to actually inform the Government about those four key areas?

  Mr Coaker: Well, we have a number of research policies.

  Q63  Chairman: Is there any research in any of those four key areas, high-profile, public areas, and the answer is no.

  Mr Coaker: I could not specifically refer to one piece of research. There are a number of research papers which will no doubt deal with some of the points which you make with respect to that, but I cannot point to one specifically at the moment.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: I think it would be unfair to say that the Home Office was not, and it would be very unfair to the Chief Scientist at the Home Office to say that he was not, commissioning research in relation to this because he is unquestionably. A lot of it is secondary research, not necessarily primary research, but secondary research and very important. Also there is of course research undertaken by the police, some of which does not actually get published for reasons which I think are obvious, so I do not want you to go away with the idea that there is no research being done at all, but I think what people like David Nutt, who is really very close to this area, would say is that he would like to have access to better research and it is something that he and I will bring up with Colin Blakemore and the ESRC to see how we can move this forward. We take that point and we hold our hands up.

  Q64  Dr Iddon: But the main drug charities, Drugscope, and I could name a whole string of them, have been very critical certainly in the 10 years I have been in Parliament about the amount of research that has been done in the United Kingdom on drug-addiction and all the issues we have discussed this morning. We rely apparently mainly on research coming out of the United States of America who, by a proportion of GDP, spend far more on research and development than we do here. Would you agree with that?

  Professor Nutt: That is correct, that is a fact.

  Q65  Chairman: It would be very useful for us just to be able to have a handle on what research is being commissioned by the Home Office into these things.

  Mr Coaker: We did commission the ACMD to look at crystal meth, to review the evidence on methylamphetamine after the initial decision.

  Chairman: After it had already been wrongly classified. We will come back to that.

  Q66  Dr Harris: I think what the Chairman is after, as Sir Michael said, the Home Office has commissioned some secondary research and what we are after is a list of that commissioning, which you can send us later, particularly in response to the ACMD's 2002 report on cannabis, its 2003 report on hidden harm and its 2004 report on ketamine, all of which requested, we are told by the ACMD, the research to be commissioned.

  Mr Coaker: To be helpful, we can write to you.

  Q67  Mr Flello: I would like to return, if I may, to the issue of decoupling penalties from the classification system. During the inquiry, Andy Hayman the Chair of the ACPO Drugs Committee argued that a classification system was useful to "direct effort" in health services and policing but since the police could use their discretion in determining their responses, it was not a problem that the classification system was "pretty crude". Given that the police use their discretion in determining their responses anyway, what would be the disadvantage of decoupling the ranking of drugs from penalties?

  Mr Coaker: As I understand, Andy Hayman was saying it does influence the policing decisions that they make in the community. What he was saying, however, was these are operational matters for the police as to how they best police their own communities. We also know, for example, that the Serious and Organised Crime Agency is directed predominantly towards tackling Class A drugs so, as I say, the police officers who speak to me—ACPO and so on—understand the classification system and they use that as part of the information they use in determining operational matters within their localities, so I think in that sense that is what Andy Hayman was saying and I think it is an important contribution to it. It directs activity, the dealers in particular know the consequences of their actions, and it is part of the way that we try again as part of our drugs strategy not only to tackle people who misuse drugs but to deal with those people who supply drugs as well.

  Q68  Mr Flello: Professor Nutt, can I address the question to yourself. Do you see a disadvantage in decoupling the ranking of drugs from penalties?

  Professor Nutt: In a way I probably do because at some point someone has to decide what the penalty is. It may be easier for a committee such as ours to look at rankings rather than the police or the judiciary themselves. At some point we have got to do it.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: It seems to be a principle of British justice that the penalty fits the crime. The more severe the crime and the more nasty stuff you are purveying then you go to prison for longer periods of time. That seems to be a perfectly reasonable approach to justice and I had always believed it to be the approach underpinning the classification system; the nastier the drug the longer you go to jail if you start trading in it.

  Q69  Chairman: Nastier means the degree of harm to the individual and to society?

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: Exactly.

  Q70  Chairman: Which is why we sell alcohol in every supermarket!

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: It would be a very brave Home Secretary who declared alcohol a controlled substance.

  Q71  Adam Afriyie: I think that leads me to my line of questions. It is quite clear that alcohol, tobacco to some extent, and maybe even caffeine one could argue are all legal drugs, and there is no doubt that alcohol causes a tremendous amount of crime, anti-social behaviour and all sorts of problems to the individual and to society overall. I wonder, how would you rank alcohol and tobacco in the scale of harm that the ACMD uses?

  Mr Coaker: Can I just say as an introduction to that, the Committee itself—and I thought it was a very sensible finding—was not suggesting that you make alcohol and tobacco illegal and the Committee itself recognised that. I think what we are talking about with respect to alcohol rather than tobacco is the Government's position is that it is the misuse of alcohol that we wish to address.

  Q72  Adam Afriyie: The question was where would you rank alcohol?

  Mr Coaker: I think misuse and abuse of alcohol rather than alcohol per se is something that is obviously very harmful, and that is why the Government has spent a lot of money and a lot of time not just in the Home Office but working with other government departments trying to address the harm that alcohol causes when it is misused.

  Q73  Adam Afriyie: In looking at the scale of harm, the harm caused by alcohol and arguably tobacco, they should be ranked far higher than LSD and ecstasy. Where do you think alcohol would be positioned on the table?

  Mr Coaker: First of all, there is a distinction between illegal and legal drugs, as I know you are aware, and what we have got is a classification system that ranks illegal drugs. What we also have alongside that is issues with respect to substances which are legal, as alcohol and tobacco are, and that we know cause harm, particularly with the misuse of alcohol. The misuse of alcohol is a serious problem. I have seen what people have said as to where it should be placed. I think somebody was recommending somewhere on the border of A and B. I do not know whether that is the appropriate place for it but I stress again, Adam, it is the misuse of alcohol and we do have significant policies in government to try to tackle a problem which we know is a very real one.

  Q74  Adam Afriyie: Okay, but do you think it might be helpful in the Government's aim to tackle the misuse of alcohol and perhaps tobacco, to educate people by inclusion in the table of harm so they can see very clearly where they fit as mind-altering drugs?

  Mr Coaker: If you have retained the classification of illegal drugs, as we have done, I do not think you could put it in that categorisation. What we are doing—

  Q75  Adam Afriyie:— But that is based on the harm to individuals and society and surely you can place alcohol within that table?

  Mr Coaker: The judgment that we have made is a distinction between legal and illegal drugs, but what we have also recognised, however, is that you have got a classification system dealing with illegal drugs, then we have got legal substances—and again there is no division between us on this—and we know where alcohol is abused there is a real issue. We know that we need to tackle that. We have an alcohol harm reduction strategy which we are looking at, and we are working with the industry, working with education, working with health, working with all other government departments to try to tackle that.

  Q76  Adam Afriyie: The only short point I would make and ask for a comment on is why does the Government feel the need to withhold the information on the harm to individuals and to society of legal drugs like alcohol? Why is it not in the table? Would that not help to educate people to see the impact these substances have on society?

  Mr Coaker: We are not trying to withhold information about the harm that the misuse of alcohol does. We know the misuse of alcohol is extremely harmful. There has been a lot of publicity about it, the information is out there, there have been a lot of debates in Parliament and so on about all of that. What I am saying is that we would not put it in a classification system at the current time where we rank illegal drugs.

  Mr Newmark: That is only for historical reasons. The fact is that both alcohol and tobacco alter people's mental functioning. If we are trying to educate the public as to the harm of drugs that are illegal, then I do think there is some sort of relativism in order to be honest with the public with respect to alcohol and tobacco. That is not something we are saying you should do but it is something that should be considered. Again, for historic reasons we have said that marijuana is illegal and yet we know of many young people who take marijuana and who say it is no more harmful to them in terms of altering their mental functioning than two glasses of alcohol of some form. I think it is important if we are going to be honest with the public that we do tabulate it. We could have one column that says "illegal" and one that says "legal". The fact is just because for historic reasons we have decided marijuana is illegal and alcohol and tobacco are legal does not alter the fact that both actually alter people's mental functioning, and I think that is the important message we need to get across to people.

  Q77  Chairman: Do you agree with that?

  Mr Coaker: First of all, marijuana—and I know you are not saying this, Brooks, but just to be clear about this—will stay a legal drug. I know that you were not suggesting that it should not be. Just to repeat the point, I think the important message is about the harm that the misuse of alcohol does. That is the message that we need to get out there. That is the message that we are trying to do. I am not sure to put that in a list with illegal drugs is the most appropriate way to do that. There is an issue about ensuring that everyone is aware of the harm that misuse of alcohol causes.

  Q78  Dr Turner: I think the point, Vernon, is not so much that anyone is suggesting that tobacco or alcohol should be made illegal but that it should be pointed out that were they illegal drugs this is where we would put them on a scale of harm.

  Professor Sir Michael Rawlins: Can I come in here. In another life I live every day with the problem of alcohol and tobacco, which cause more misery and suffering than the whole of the misuse of drugs together. Collectively it causes about 150,000 premature deaths every year. Our response to that has to be very different to the response to the substance misuse issue. It is a massive problem, it causes, as I said, untold misery, and our reaction to it has to be predominantly a public health one. There are limits to what the law can do. Everybody knows that too much alcohol is bad for you, everybody knows that. Kids are also taught at school about the harm caused by tobacco. What is very disturbing is the fact that the early use of tobacco and alcohol by kids is probably the main gateway to substance misuse later on, and I think we really do need as a society to recognise the importance of tobacco and alcohol in relationship to kids and do more in schools. However, frankly, putting it into the classification system I just do not think is going to get us anywhere. We have got to focus our effort on what will really, really work.

  Q79  Mr Newmark: This goes back to my point, therefore if you are trying educate children—and I agree as someone who is a non-smoker and non-drinker myself—as to why drugs are bad (and I agree with Vernon's statement that that does not mean that we should make anything legal that is illegal) we must show young children in particular, if we are saying marijuana or LSD or anything else kids take is bad, in the exact same table that alcohol and tobacco are just as bad or relatively as bad as the other drugs on the table. That is part of the education process. If you are saying one is a public health issue because for historic reasons we have said alcohol and tobacco are perfectly okay but for other reasons we have said dropping LSD and smoking marijuana is not, I think it is very misleading to the public, and in particular to young people, and I think it shows that we are being hypocritical.

  Mr Coaker: The only point I would make, just to repeat, is we have got a classification system for illegal drugs; we have got legal substances, alcohol and tobacco, which we try and regulate through other means such as through public health messages.