§ As amended (in the standing Committee), considered.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill he now read the Third time."
§ Mr. SIDNEY WEBBI am not opposing this Bill, but there is a matter which I think should be made clear in connection with the medical profession. In passing a Bill such as this we have to be careful that we are not interfering unduly with the liberty of medical men. I hope that the Home Secretary will be good enough to inform the House whether there is still any intention in the new Regulations under this Act to draw a distinction between medical practitioners who are in practice and those who are not. I do not think that the law draws any such distinction. Once a man's name is on the medical register he is entitled to practise, and though he may have retired he does occasionally practise. The distinction is sometimes made between medical men who are in practice and those who are assumed to have retired, there is no such legal distinction, I believe, and even in so far as they are supposed to have retired, men may, and occasionally do, practise, for the service of humanity, possibly, or otherwise. Moreover, they may be engaged in scientific research of one kind or another. I would therefore ask the Home Secretary to satisfy some doubts which have been put to me by the medical profession as to whether there will be in the Regulations under this Act any retention of that distinction. I protest that the mere fact that some medical practitioners out of the whole 40,000 are supposed to be addicted to drugs would hardly be sufficient reason for limiting the opportunities of the 40,000 for obtaining these substances for legitimate purposes. Many of the purposes to which these poisonous drugs are or may be put are quite legitimate even if the drugs are not necessarily to be prescribed for administration to other persons. That is the first question. I have no doubt that some hon. Member who is more acquainted with the medical profession than I am would have put 896 this question, even had I not done so. I have been moved to ask it by actual inquiries made of me by registered medical practitioners who are in doubt on the matter.
The second question is this: This Bill is, of course, an extreme case of the evil of legislation by reference, and I cannot pretend, I confess with some humility, to have searched out all the Acts to which reference is made in the Bill. In particular, I have here no explanation given why the poisonous drugs and other substances to which this Bill will apply, and in connection with which extremely rigorous penalties are to be inflicted, should be, as they are, certified in the schedule of an old Pharmacy Act of 1868. A great deal has happened in the realm of scientific discovery since that date. Even the medical profession and the British Pharmacop$a have made changes since 1868. It seems a little out of date, there fore, that we should apply these stringent penalties to a list of poisonous substances specified more than half a century ago. Does this list include anything like all the poisonous substances now known to the medical profession? Would it not be still possible, in one of the Regulations under the Bill, to draw up a revised schedule, with the advice of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons, which would be a little more 'n accordance with medical and chemical knowledge than could be a list drawn up in 1868? I ask for enlightenment on this point for the benefit of the House and of the public. There has been some misgiving amongst registered practitioners on the subject.
There is another subject under another head. In Clause 2, Sub-section (1, d), we have it made an offence to
aid, abet, counsel or procure the commission in any place outside Great Britain of any offence punishable under the provisions of any corresponding law in force in that placeor to doany act preparatory to or in furtherance of any act which if committed in Great Britain would constitute an offence against this Act.That seems to place our law at the disposal of any other country which at any time may pass an enactment making, say, alcohol, a dangerous drug. That is, perhaps, a farcical illustration. Take, for instance, laws which might be passed in 897 Turkey or China. or Japan or the United States. I do not know whether there is any precedent for enacting in advance such severe penalties for aiding, abetting and counselling the commission of any offence punishable under the provisions, of any corresponding law in some other country. It seems to be opening a very wide door. It may be that I have an imaginary fear on the subject, but as we are the legislative authority, I think we might pay a little more attention to the principles on which our criminal law is based. On these points I hope that the Home Secretary will give me some information—not a narcotic, but at any rate a soothing assurance. Should he do that, I do not think he will commit any offence under his own Measure, for I am sure that anything he says would not be a poisonous drug or a dangerous substance. There are other points [...] if I were bettor acquainted with the medical profession, might very likely be brought forward. I can only apologise to hon. Members who represent the medical profession more especially in this House for venturing thus, with all humility, to plunge in where they, perhaps, ought to have been first to tread.
§ Sir SYDNEY RUSSELL-WELLSI would like to compliment the last speaker on the interest he has shown in medicine, but I cannot compliment him on being up-to-date. If the hon. Member had taken advantage of the opportunity of going to the Vote Office and getting a copy of the Bill as amended in Committee, he would not have made the speech to which we have just listened.
§ 4.0. P M
§ Sir S. RUSSELL-WELLSThere is, for instance, the Clause which distinguishes between the medical man in actual practice and other medical men. That Clause, as it appeared in the Bill when first printed, has vanished, and no distinction is now made between the two classes of medical men. Another matter on which I cannot compliment the hon. Member is the fact that he lid not take the trouble to look up the Acts to which reference is made in the Bill. Had he done so, he would have found that there are certain schedules in the old Act to which he has referred, but that those schedules have been revised several times since they were first drawn up. Of course the matter of the legislation of 898 other countries raises questions in one's mind. It did so in my case; but when I went into the subject, I found it was absolutely necessary that there should be some such Clause if we were to have any Convention between different countries for the suppression of what is undoubtedly a pernicious practice. The Bill refers only do certain drugs which are specifically mentioned. On behalf of the medical Members, who have taken a very active interest, in this Bill, I feel it my duty, as the Chairman of the Committee of Medical Members did in Committee, to express our great appreciation of the courtesy and consideration which the Home Secretary showed to us when we made representations. He went into all our objections on behalf of the medical profession most fully. He considered all that we said most sympathetically, and he has adopted, I think I may say in spirit, every suggestion which we put before him. I think he felt that we were anxious to help him in making a Bill which would remove these abuses, and that we were not anxious in any way to encourage an extremely pernicious traffic. It is impossible to say that all points have been provided for. In a complicated Measure like this, for it is complicated although short, affecting so many professions, so many places, and such a vast number of people, it is almost certain that in actual practice little difficulties may arise but, if such difficulties do arise, I am perfectly certain that under the present Administration they will be removed, so far as possible, by administrative order. I want to thank the Home Secretary also on behalf of the medical profession for removing the Regulation which prevents doctors prescribing for themselves. Just as the hon. Member saw that was a very great difficulty, so we all felt that it was a difficulty, and, when we laid the matter before the Home Secretary, and we were able to point out to him that it would cause endless inconvenience, endless hardship, and all sorts of anomalies, and would not be likely to effect the object which we had in view, he met us most frankly and undertook to issue a countervailing Regulation, which, I believe, he has done. I sincerely hope that the Bill, as amended, will now go through the House rapidly, and that it will achieve the object for which it is being passed.
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Bridge-man)My hon. Friend behind me (Sir S. Russell-Wells) has answered the questions which the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) has put to me. Bad I been aware that he took so much interest in the affairs of the medical profession, I would have been delighted to consult him beforehand, but, as I was not, I consulted some of the representatives of the profession who came to me and met me on this matter. I am glad that I have their approval of the alterations that have been made in the Bill. With regard to the Regulation, I am taking the usual steps to have it done away with. If the hon. Member had studied with the same laborious care the proceedings in Committee as he does most other subjects to which he addresses himself, he would have found that I have omitted the words "in actual practice" from the Bill, and that, therefore, that difficulty has gone.
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANIf the House allows the Regulation which will have to be laid on the Table—I shall have to issue a new Regulation—then the distinction will be entirely gone both from the Bill and the Regulations. The hon. Member also asked me about the schedule of drugs. The schedule was made up under Section 2 of the original Act of 1868, and it has been brought up to date to 1908. tinder Section 2 of that Act it is possible, on the advice of the Pharmaceutical Society Council, to add to the schedule. If they can convince the Department that any other drugs ought to be added, they can be added under Order in Council. The other point which the hon. Member raised was on Clause 2, paragraph (d), with regard to any corresponding law in other countries. If he will look at Clause 6, Sub-section (2), he will see that the corresponding law is very fully explained. It means
any law stated in a certificate purporting to be issued by or on behalf of the Government of any country outside Great Britain to he a law providing for the control and regulation in that country of the manufacture, sale, use, export and import of drugs in accordance with the provisions of the international Opium Convention signed at The Hague, on the twenty-third day of January. 1912.I think that should provide sufficient safeguards to do away with his appre- 900 hension that any foreign country may pass a law which we shall be obliged to observe, because at any rate it has to be in accordance with the International Opium Convention.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI hope that the facile passage of this, the first Bill of the Home Office this Session, will not induce the Home Secretary to produce from the pigeon-holes at the Home Office all their little Bills for facilitating the creation of crimes by making Acts of Parliament. This is the sort of Bill which we have been accustomed to in the past as introduced by private Members, and it augurs ill if the Home Office is now going to take up these Private Members' Bills and pass them year after year. A predecessor of mine in the representation of Newcastle-under-Lyme used to make it his rule to oppose all new Bills and vote for the repeal of all old Bills, and I am sorry to see the Homo Secretary coming forward as the protagonist of the doctrine, "Let us pass new laws at any price." This is simply a Bill to make the traffic in cocaine more difficult, and it must he judged by its results, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that this is only one of a series of Bills of the same nature. In the old days we used to have as a hardy annual a Bill for putting down the White Slave traffic. That has now gone. All the legislation ever asked for has been passed, but nothing has come of the legislation. Now the nerves and tone of the country have got to be stimulated, and. we shall have, year after year, legislation of this kind to put down, once and for all, this cocaine traffic. It is not the people who take the cocaine who are being doped, but it is the public all the time. The panic is got up by the stunt Press, and thereafter Parliament is compelled to listen to Bills such as this.
There is a method in the stunt Press dope. They want to distract the attention of the public from things that really matter by trotting out this White Slave traffic or this dope traffic scare. I do not mind. You can pass these Bills year after year, but you will never any longer be able to delude the people into believing that what is wrong with the world can be cured by stopping the traffic in cocaine, when all the time you have under your very noses the collapse of our present system working itself out by an increase in unemployment and in the 901 destitution of the people of the country. If half as much attention were directed to preventing unemployment and destitution as we have directed towards stopping this traffic in cocaine, we might get a real solution of the social problem. These sham solutions are all very well to delude the people who do not think, but the public are beginning to look a little bit below the surface, and they will not be satisfied with a solution of the social problem which is obtained by sending to prison people who traffic in cocaine.
§ Mr. CLAYTONThe Home Secretary has made concessions in an Amendment to the medical service and to the pharmaceutical chemists. I want to ask him to make the same concessions to the licensed Wholesale drug houses. At the present time, those wholesale drug houses are lumped together with the illicit dealers in drugs and are liable to the same penalties.
§ Mr. BRIDGEMANThis question was raised in Committee, and I then gave the reasons why I thought it was impossible to accede to the hon. Gentleman's proposal. A breach of the conditions of the licence by one of the wholesale drug houses might be as serious as any other breach under the Act.
§ Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLEThere are only three small points to which I want to draw attention. The hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) referred to social problems generally and called this stunt legislation. I should like to congratulate the Home Secretary on introducing such a useful bit of legislation and the House generally on facilitating its passage with so little trouble. If only hon. Members on the opposite benches world help us to get through with equal facility legislation piecemeal, the social problem would be solved all the more quickly. It is by taking matters piecemeal and dealing with definite injuries when they arise and where we think that they can be dealt with effectively and practicably, as has been the case with this Measure, that we are able by degrees to get at the social problem. It is the old story of trying to pull out the hairs of the horse's tail all at once. You cannot do it, but, if you pull them out hair by hair, you eventually get the horse's tail removed. It is not stunt 902 legislation. I wish we could imagine, as the hon. and gallant Member in calm ignorance imagines, that this is stunt legislation, or, in other words, that there is not this danger that is attributed to this traffic. It is one of the most serious dangers at the present time, and it is all the more serious in that it has not penetrated to the brain of the hon. and gallant Member. It is just this kind of danger that I fear, and not the dangers of which we hear so much from the Opposition Benches. It is the subtle and insidious dangers which are, perhaps, sapping the vitality of individuals whom we meet in ordinary life, among our own friends, and in the street, not thinking that there is anything serious the matter with them, but wondering why they are beginning to show themselves slack about things. After a time we begin to think that there must be something seriously wrong with them. A man of businesslike habits suddenly throws off those habits and his business goes to pot. It is only after the "something wrong" has become absolutely fixed in his constitution that it is found to be dim to this subtle drug practice.
I had a striking example of the effects of the practice as a medical student when walking the hospitals. On our round one day there came a seedy-looking medical man, dishevelled, untidy and unkempt, with a quaint far-away look in his eyes. He came round with us and after he had gone out of the ward the physician turned to us and said, "That was one of the most brilliant men of his time; he took all sorts of scholarships and honours; he held high appointments, and he did brilliant work. He went to private practice, and he was afflicted by a series of disasters—not through his own fault—and he is now a victim of the morphia habit, and is trying to cure it." The physician also told us of the difficulty of effecting such a cure, and gave us a series of illustrations. If by means of this Measure, the Home Secretary has done his bit in helping us to get at this evil, then I think we are indeed tackling one of the most serious national dangers in the right way, and I hope it may be effective. It is suggested from the Opposition Benches that this Measure is not going to the root of the problem; that it is only a punitive and repressive Measure, and that the only way to tackle such a problem is to go to its root and stop the 903 production of the drugs, the use of which we are seeking to repress. I think that will be a serious line to go upon with regard to future legislation, and the House must inevitably look for a further campaign on that line on the subject of this danger. The hon. Member for Sea-ham (Mr. Webb) said that naturally we doctors knew more of the details of such a Measure than laymen. I am rather surprised that the party he represents have not brought in the assistance of their two medical Members in criticising this Bill. The hon. Member for West Bermondsey (Dr. Salter) has already made remarkable contributions to the business of this House, and we should have been glad to hear any criticisms which he had to offer of the Bill. I do not think he would endorse the criticisms of the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme.
There are two points to which I wish to direct attention. One is the reduction in the penalties for certain minor offences under the Bill. As the Bill was originally drafted, there was an extremely heavy penalty—a fine of £1,000 or penal servitude, I think—for a series of offences including some which might quite well be classed as trivial. We pointed this out to the Home Secretary, and he has brought in an Amendment. There are now two series of penalties for two series of offences. As the Bill originally stood serious trouble might have arisen in this respect. A man through carelessness or through the fatigue that comes after the daily round of work, might have failed to enter particulars in a book or to have kept some of the records required under the Bill and for that offence might have been subject to the highest penalty. The original idea was that the magistrates in such cases would not inflict the highest penalty, but there are some things to be said about that view. One, is that there are cases where even the magistrates in some out-of-the-way places might make genuine mistakes, and where a genuine grievance would arise, and the result of the genuine grievance might be that. chemists and medical men would come to the conclusion that this Measure involved great danger to them. They would point out that. So-and-so had had an extraordinarily heavy penalty inflicted upon him for a comparatively trivial offence, and they would say," We will have 904 nothing more to do with it." Thus, chemists and medical men would have been definitely discouraged from doing their duty in dealing with these drugs. It may be said that such cases would never arise, but such case as the following might arise. Supposing a man were definitely a drug-taker, and committed an offence and was fined. Supposing he represented in his defence that he had only committed an offence of the trivial kind, by inadvertence and carelessness. Although the court might give its decision against him, nevertheless that man might raise a very great public agitation on the ground that he had suffered the major penalty for a minor offence, and that might have a detrimental and discouraging effect on the right and proper use of the drugs by druggists and medical men. It is a much sounder policy where there is such a very wide range of offences as is dealt with in the Bill, to have two sets of penalties for two sets of offences.
The other point to which I wish to refer is contained in the Clause 4, Sub-section (2), of the Bill, which, if enacted, will meet a very serious and long-standing trouble. Under this Clause every bottle containing medicine which includes any of these poisons is to be labelled with the name of the poison and with particulars as regards the proportion of the poison to the whole preparation. That meets the difficulty with which we have always had to contend with regard to patent medicines. The medical profession and the chemists always insisted, in the public interest, that it was essential that patent medicines, in view of the protection which they have from the law, should he bound to show their ingredients. On the other hand, those who stand for patent medicines, and the commerce which they represent., hold that such a course is not in the interests of British trade, and that it would involve revealing trade secrets. Thus, there are two conflicting claims of two conflicting public interests. This Bill meets the conflicting claims. The pill maker, or the patent medicine maker, may still put all sorts of confections and infusions into his medicines—all the frogs' livers, the flowers, the herbs, and the various other things into his mixture—without revealing the secret. But as regards a dangerous drug he is bound to give the proportion of that dangerous drug present in the mixture. That meets our 905 case, and, I believe, also meets the case of the proprietors of the patent medicine, and therefore it is a very remarkable instance of sound legislation meeting two opposing views in the public interest.. I am very glad to add my own words to those of the hon. Member for the London University (Sir S. Russell-Wells), on behalf of the whole medical profession, thanking the Home Secretary for the action he has taken in amending the Bill.
§ Dr. CHAPPLEThe hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle - under - Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) expressed his surprise that a Bill of this nature should get through the House with such facility. No doubt he recalls the time when on another Bench and with less responsibility he was able to bold up legislation so successfully. Perhaps he now longs to repeat his former triumphs, but realising the responsible position he now holds on the Front Opposition Bench is prevented from doing so and he feels surprised that none of us should at least try to earn the honours which formerly distinguished him Why is this Bill passing through the House with such facility? It is just because there is no vested interest or only a very small vested interest behind the traffic which is affected by it. The vested interest behind this drug traffic is so unimportant and uninfluential that it is not able to stop the passing of a reform like this. I am led to contrast the facility with which this Measure has been accepted and passed through this Chamber, with the delay and the retardation with which the Report of the Committee on Patent Medicines has been met. This Bill deals with perhaps only one-tenth of the evils arising from the drug traffic. A few actresses and poets represent the only vested interest affected by this Bill. The money interest and the Press interest and the merchants' interest are practically nil. It is mostly an underground traffic with no vested interest to support it, and it is being attacked with enormous penalties—I am merely stating face—and with a determination on the part of this House to suppress the evil. I recall the Report of the Patent Medicines Committee. Case after case was brought before the Committee which showed that one of the greatest evils spreading throughout this country to-day, is the evil of the very drug traffic with which this Bill does not deal at all. I 906 appeal to the Government, which has taken up the matter in this Bill to go a long step further to take in hand the Report of that Committee and to introduce legislation with a view to remedying the evils which are there brought out. That report came out at a very unfortunate time. It was issued in July, 1914. The report actually calls attention to the vested interests which were supporting the patent medicine traffic—the vested interests of the Press, the wholesale manufacturers, and the retail sellers —and it suggests that the measure of publicity which would be given to that report would indicate the vested interests in the Press supporting the patent medicine traffic. There was evidence that cocaine existed in some of these preparations. There was evidence that medicated wines were nearly all frauds, and the term "medicated" was used in order to attract buyers.
Mr. SPEAKEROn the Third Reading of a Bill we must deal with what is in the Bill, and not with what should be in it. The hon. Member may make his appeal, but he must not enter in detail into the merits of legislation on another subject.
§ Dr. CHAPPLEI am sorry if I have transgressed. I simply wish to call the attention of the Government to the fact that, while they are on the route towards reform, there is something greater which they might tackle and I think the time is ripe now to tackle it. The House is well educated in the evil of the drug traffic, and if the Government take up the report to which I have referred, and found a Bill upon it, they will earn not only the gratitude of the House but the gratitude of the country and the gratitude of a great many sufferers.
§ Sir FREDERICK BANBURYThe House is entitled to pass this particular Bill, but I hope it will not be taken advantage of to bring in a lot of other Bills dealing with all sorts of things about which we know nothing. I do not agree with the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) except as regards one portion. That is the portion in which he implores the Home Secretary not to allow his officials to bring forth all the old Bills which they may have in pigeon-holes and to take advantage of the 907 kindness with which all sections of the House have treated the right hon. Gentleman's maiden effort at legislation. I think I can trust my right hon. Friend in that respect, and I hope I am right in thinking that he will not take advantage of the suggestion which has been made by the hon. Member who spoke last. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for St. Albans (Lieut.-Colonel Fremantle) need not be so very much afraid of the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. I know the hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme probably better than my hon. and gallant Friend does, and, after all, what does his speech amount to? He would not say anything against the Bill—he felt in his own mind that it was as good a piece of legislation on this subject as this House could pass—but he must oppose the Government and he must say something against the Government. I am sure I can figure out what passed in his mind. He said to himself, "Here is an opportunity for bringing in my solution for all evils, and that is taxation of land values." He intended to point out that if we had taxation of land values there would be no occasion to bring in a Bill dealing with cocaine. I am not sure that the hon. and gallant Member was not right in one way, because if his Taxation of Land Values Bill had been brought in and carried, nobody would have any money, and therefore nobody could buy any drugs, for which reason probably it would have even a better effect on this particular evil than the Bill of my right hon. Friend. I do not myself believe that this sort of Bill is going to stop the traffic altogether. I think it will go a good way towards it and make it much more difficult for people to obtain drugs, but where a man has got the drug habit—I am not a medical man, but- I think I am right—he is going to get a drug if he possibly can, and it will take a good deal of legislation to prevent it.
§ Dr. CHAPPLEThis prevents him from acquiring the habit.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI do not know. I hope it will, hut human nature is weak, and I am not so sure that it will have the good effect that some people think. At any rate, it is a step in the right direction, and as long as my right hon. Friend 908 does not bring in any more of these Bills, and lets us have a little breathing time, I shall be satisfied.
§ Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read the Third time, and passed.