In a hurry to act tough following the recent spate of mephedrone related fatalities, Alan Johnson is pushing through a Misuse of Drugs Act ammendment on 16th April. Only Parliamentry process doesn't seem to be quick enough for our Home Secretary, hence this morning, on 1st April of all days, every council chief exec in the land received a letter urging trading standards to seize it under 'consumer protection' law.
Several took the advice, seizing white powder today labelled as 'plant food' and 'bath salts' using powers under fair trading legislation. While Johnson is probably working to a May 6th deadline, local authorities have to abide by the law and pay compensation to traders they wrongly seize goods from.
The reasoning for the action was that the substance was no use as 'plant food' and therefore the labels were misleading to consumers. However, the 'transactional decision' test in the regulations requires that misleading labels have to be proven to be likely to cause consumers to take purchasing decisions they would not have otherwise taken. Was anyone really misled into buying this product thinking it would make their tomatoes grow? Of course they weren't, it goes up their noses.
Another question is why trading standards didn't use powers under product safety laws to detain the goods. This is a mystery, but 'plant food', or 'miaow, miaow' has a similar active ingredient to Khat. Banning white powders that kill middle class white kids might be good for Labour's election hopes, but banning the Somali recreational drug of choice?
Watch this space for developments.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Knickers in a twist ...
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6 comments:
SL, I trust that's not a belated April Fool?
I personally am thoroughly against banning the stuff (or most other drugs, come to that), in particular as it has not yet been linked conclusively to any particular death (let alone whether the downside of criminalising it would justify it), but as UKIP point out, the UK can't just ban it until it gets the nod from the EU anyway.
Personally I have never been able to understand why people would want to introduce chemical substances into their bodies. So its fair to say I'm pretty anti-drugs.
But would I ban this substance - and by definition other drugs? No. I used to believe we should ban the bad drugs and take a soft line on the less harmful ones. However its difficult to defend these prohibitions because they seem not to work.
Certainly I don't want to see people ruin their health, disrupt their relationships and lose their livelihoods. But, its their life; its their choice. Not mine.
As for mephedrone; its legal.
So far as I've seen little evidence of harm and until there is it shouldn't be a concern of the authorities.
Sadly, the authorities don't operate like that these days. The screaming headlines repeating tales of the uninformed and weak-willed ministers will do whatever appeals to their audiences. Facts when out with flared trousers and Thatcher.
MW, I didn't know about the EU rule. I know there are UN treaties on narcotics, and rumour has it the vested US interests are big on prohibition of drugs in general.
JP, they only ever bother banning the 'legal highs' that work and there is a market for. I'm not a fan of prohibition either.
We will soon be in a state where, to paraphrase T.H.White: "Everything not compulsory is forbidden".
My misuse of drugs will be to go overseas to actually get some medicines strong enough to work as they're meant to. All are watered down and cost the earth here.
B, that's why there's a blogger called "If it's not banned it's compulsory".
JH, are you sure you're not visiting a homeopath by mistake?
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