HL Deb 30 October 1979 vol 402 cc353-68

3.50 p.m.

The Earl of DENBIGH rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take on the increase in the use of drugs disclosed in the statistics of the misuse of drugs in the United Kingdom 1978, set out in the Home Office Statistical Bulletin of June 1979. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question that stands in my name on the Order Paper. My interest in this particular subject arises from the fact that I am the chairman of the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse. This is a national co-ordinating agency for voluntary services working with people who have drug-related problems. With regard to my Question, I wish particularly to concentrate—in relation to the Home Office statistics—on first notifications, rather than on overall notifications, because I believe that this is where the problem is shown up best. In 1977 there were 1,108 new notifications to the Home Office. By 1978 the figure had risen to 1,352, and although the figures are not yet officially available, I am led to believe that the first six months of 1979 have shown an increase of over 20 per cent.

We must look also at the whole question of dissatisfaction with the notification system. As I understand it, doctors are required to notify only known or suspected addicts using opiate or opiate-type drugs. This does not include barbiturates or amphetamines. Many addicts are reluctant to be notified, for a number of reasons, one of which is fear of police involvement should it be known that they are addicted to drugs; they might be raided and further harassed in the courts. Therefore these cases are not included. Consequently, I believe that the figures shown in the statistics do not realistically reflect the number of drug addicts and people with a drug dependency problem in this country. There must also be increasing concern over the abuse of prescribed drugs by the people for whom they have been prescribed. This is a problem. Furthermore, the large number of prescriptions is tending to lead to a black market in barbiturates and amphetamines, which are increasingly being abused in conjunction with alcohol.

Dr. Anthony Thornley, to whom I was talking the other day, and who is a consultant psychiatrist at Parkwood House, Newcastle, believes that the national level of prescription has tended to be related to the level of abuse in the country; for example, the more prescriptions there are, the greater the number of drug abuse problems the country is likely to have. I was interested to read in the Daily Mail this morning that in America a USA congressional committee investigating drug abuse reported that a staggering 44.6 million prescriptions for the mild tranquiliser valium were issued in one year alone. It goes on to say that dependency on even minor tranquilisers can be harder to "kick" than can heroin, and ultimately may cause brain damage.

I suggest that new research into these milder types of drug is urgently needed in order to find out what types of treatment are required and where this is needed. Her Majesty's Government's cuts in public expenditure must lead to fewer facilities for what I believe is an underestimated and growing problem. Many of the non-statutory services, which are mostly funded by central or local government, are at present facing serious financial pressure and uncertainty. Many of their funding sources are drying up; even the aid which should be coming to them is being delayed, and they have no real idea of what their budgets for the current year or future years are likely to be.

I should like to say a little about the rehabilitation houses. In 1978 nine rehabilitation houses, with approximately 260 beds available, received 1,500 applications for treatment—that is to say, addicts who actually requested that they should receive treatment on a voluntary basis. Unfortunately, 75 per cent. of these had to be refused due to lack of space. Coming back to the Home Office figures, 40 per cent. of the addicts who privately requested treatment were not notified to the Home Office. In the same year one central London hospital alone admitted over 850 drug dependent overdose patients. Based on the figures that the Government are issuing, and for one hospital alone, I find that rather terrifying.

Many young addicts come from broken homes and have a bad history of home life. Therefore we believe that counselling and rehabilitation, rather than psychiatric hospitals or prison sentences, is very important. One of the reasons to which I refer may well commend itself to Her Majesty's Government. The cost of rehabilitation is approximately £56 a week, whereas I understand that to keep someone in prison costs approximately £115 a week. I also understand that last year over a thousand people who were sent to prison were on arrival judged by the prison medical service to be drug dependent. I do not wish to connect that fact with what I am to say next, but I believe that we really must question whether drug addicts or people with a drug dependency problem should be treated as criminals for possession of substances to which they are addicted.

The problem is becoming more of a national one. It used to be mainly centred in the South-East, and particularly in the Greater London area. But over the last seven years, there has been a 127 per cent. increase of notified addicts outside the Greater London area. Many of these addicts have no facilities available to them. Even in areas where treatment centres are available, the number of general practitioner notifications appears to be increasing over the number of treatment centre notifications. I would suggest that this means that treatment centres are not containing the problem.

Her Majesty's Government must do more research into the problems of drug abuse, and treatment and rehabilitation services should be expanded. We also believe that intervention is extremely important. City Road Crisis Intervention Centre, for instance, which is a relatively new centre operating in London, is the only non-opiate multidrug abuse centre anywhere in this country. It appears initially to be very successful, yet through an uncertainty of funding—it was originally guaranteed finance for three years—it may have to cut back on its proposed programme and might even be forced to close. I hope that this will not happen, as the type of work that the centre is doing is desperately needed. I also believe that we must look very closely at early intervention into drug problems before people are totally addicted. May I ask Her Majesty's Government to think seriously before allowing any of the services relating to drug abuse to suffer from financial cuts. At a time of expanding drug abuse more facilities and research are needed, not less.

3.57 p.m.

Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE

My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords in the House will be most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, for instituting this debate this afternoon. Those of us who have to deal with young people have realised for some time that drug abuse is an escalating problem, and I fear that it will continue to be so in the future. I personally am most grateful to the noble Earl for bringing this question to the notice of the House. However, he highlights only half of the problem, and I believe that unless Members of the House have personal experience of people who are suffering from the results of drug abuse, it is very difficult for them to realise the degradation in which people become involved due to the misuse of drugs.

We are told by the Home Office that in 1978 13,400 people were found guilty of offences involving controlled drugs; that was 5 per cent. more than in 1977. The number of addicts known to the Home Office to receive narcotic drugs from medical practitioners as treatment was 2,408 as at 31st December 1978. Anyone who reads the relevant Home Office documents will be aware that they use the phrase "known to the Home Office", and I would submit that those cases known to the Home Office represent not even the tip of the iceberg. They do not come anywhere near the figure of all those involved in drug abuse in our society today.

As we all know, the importation of drugs continues to increase. It increases from the Middle East, it increases from the Far East. As an island, it is perhaps easy to import drugs into this country; it can be done by sea and by air. Whatever the ultimate destination of the drugs may be, whether it is the Continent or this country, it is very easy to import drugs here. They take up very little space. For instance, the other day I had to deal with a case which involved a small suitcase which had a false bottom, which was very small indeed. The opium which it contained when it was found at Heathrow, when put on the street, had a street value of £275,000. So it pays; and what we have to try to do is to make people more aware, not only that many young people's lives are being ruined by drugtaking but also that, unfortunately, it is a very financially rewarding part of some people's lives.

The human degradation that I speak of I have seen many times. For instance, I had an office near the seamy end of Jermyn Street, just outside Piccadilly Tube station exit. There, there were just bundles of people. You could not really tell that they were people until the police came and rounded them up, put them into ambulances and took them away. They were all people who had been given drugs on prescription at a local chemist shop and who were then selling those drugs on to other people waiting for them at Piccadilly Tube station. This goes on day in and day out. Until fairly recently there was a slowing down in the taking of drugs. The high point was supposed to be about 1973, but, unfortunately, because of the situation in the Middle East and the Far East, more drugs are now getting into this country than ever before.

Something has to be done to try to stop it. But how? Most of the people who buy drugs are young people, and the young people are notoriously difficult to reach. In other words, they do not read the Daily Telegraph, they do not read The Times, and they very rarely watch television. They are very difficult people to make aware of the situation they are bringing upon themselves. The three social evils that are with us in this country today, in my view, are alcohol, smoking and drugs. The advertising of alcohol is not allowed, but as we all know it can be a killer in the end. The Government, by putting a notice on every packet of cigarettes, advertise that smoking can also be a killer. But in the case of drugs it is very difficult indeed. Drugs can be taken in tiny pellets, and you cannot possibly put any warning sign on them to any young person that a particular drug could kill them. So I am asking the Government whether they could possibly find some way of advertising the possibility that a young person will lose his or her life by taking drugs.

One way of doing it, I suggest, is this. I am sure most of your Lordships will remember that there was a horrific poster that went up on many of the hoardings in this country which said, Keep death off the roads ". People were very frightened by this. It was specifically horrific; and I should like to ask the Government whether they could put something like that on the hoardings of this country dealing with drugs, because in my view that is about the only way in which we shall get at the young people. It could be something showing somebody very near to death—which I have seen many times—because of the misuse of drugs. Perhaps there are also magazines ill which we could advertise. I have heard of one called Time Out, which I think is read by a lot of young people. It may be that we could have an advertisement inserted in that.

I should also like to see more visible means of enforcing our laws at the various ports and airports in this country. For instance, would it not be possible to have more dogs, which we are told can sniff out drugs, at our airports and at our docks? I know they have to be trained, but it might well be worth it. Then, something which the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, mentioned, I should like to encourage the provision of more places, either voluntary or under the NHS, for addicts who wish to be cured. This is one of the troubles with drugs, as it is with alcoholism: if you do not wish to be cured you will not be cured. I also want more rehabilitation units, and I think these can be provided on a voluntary basis as well as through the NHS. But, my Lords, because of the escalation of the importation of drugs they are bound to be more widely used and more young people—those people we know; those young people (perhaps I should not say this) who are somebody's children—will continue to lose their lives because, perhaps, we have not taken the trouble to draw the attention of young people to the possibility that the drugs they take will kill them.

4.7 p.m.

Baroness PHILLIPS

My Lords, I should like to intervene in this debate for one moment and to thank the noble Earl for asking this Question today. Since he has couched it in very wide terms I hope Her Majesty's Government will deal with it in wide terms. It is always interesting, when dealing with people who come before the court, not merely for drug offences but for other reasons, to observe the number of people who plead that they committed an offence because they were under the influence of a drug at the time. Occasionally, one is led to the belief that two-thirds of the population are walking about under the influence of some drug or other; and I should certainly like the Government to take this Question in its widest terms. Can we look a little more into what seems to me to be the over-prescription in which the medical profession appear to indulge? Luckily, I do not have to go to "the quack" very often, but if you have anything wrong with you these days you are offered only one of two remedies, surgery or drugs. Surely there must be a much better way to discover, first, the cause, and, secondly, the cure, for certain illnesses to which mankind appears to be prone. I would suggest that perhaps many of those who are drug dependent became drug dependent originally because they had a drug prescribed for them for some particular disease or, indeed, sometimes, for some particular pain, although we understand that pain is an indication of some much greater malady.

I should therefore like to impress upon the Minister that this is a much wider question than the mere dealing with the drug dependent person who comes before the court because he is accused of an offence connected with drugs. Far too many people commit offences while under the influence of drugs; and these are not necessarily the drugs which we know are categorised—cannabis, heroin and so on. I believe there is a far wider issue here, and it is something which we must look at in our time. On one occasion—I think it was in 1975—I recall there was an inquiry into the fact that a certain chemical company, a Swiss company, had overcharged the National Health Service for drugs. I seem to recall that the matter was raised in this House. What horrified me was not the profit the company were making—that was bad enough—but the size of the business that was being done; the millions of prescriptions for drugs which were being issued each week. May I, therefore, ask Her Majesty's Government to take up this valuable and timely question, in its widest context?

4.10 p.m.

Viscount AMORY

My Lords, I apologise for intervening. I have no knowledge of the subject at all but I was shocked by something that the noble Earl told us in his speech and which was confirmed by my noble friend Lady Macleod. In my ignorance, I had thought that the drugs problem was tending slightly downwards, that it had improved from the position of some years ago. I did not realise that its incidence is apparently turning up again now, owing, presumably, to the tremendous number of ways in which drugs can be imported. I happen to believe that addiction to drugs is the worst fate that can possibly overtake young people. It is more disastrous than anything else. It kills; and there is so little time to get the matter put right. With alcoholism there is a rather longer period to get it put right. I found the instances given to us by my noble friend Lady Macleod very moving indeed.

I only hope that if it is true that this problem—which there was some reason to think we were getting the measure of a few years ago—is tending upwards, my noble friend when he comes to reply will assure us that the Government are taking it very seriously indeed and will pay a great deal of attention to what the noble Earl has told us in his opening speech.

4.12 p.m.

Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM

My Lords, I intervene only very briefly tonight. I do not wish to seek to use this occasion for any definitive statement from this Bench on future action on drugs. I intervene principally to express my warm thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, for having posed this Unstarred Question this afternoon. He speaks with great experience as chairman of the Standing Conference on Drug Abuses and he has a very wide knowledge of these matters. As he said, this is increasingly a problem and a matter which is of widespread and growing concern throughout the country. Indeed, to any of us, whether it be in the courts or in other ways, who have seen those who have been affected by it, it is a deeply distressing one, too; as, for example, the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, mentioned tonight particularly in her references to young people.

I do not want to repeat the valuable points that have been made by the noble Earl, by the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, and by other speakers in this debate tonight. One of the questions which the noble Earl raised in the course of his remarks was whether we should treat as criminals those with a drug problem. That is, I think, a question which is receiving increasing attention in many quarters. It poses some extremely difficult problems, obviously, and ones into which I do not wish to go in detail tonight. Indeed, in a matter so complex, this is probably not the occasion to do so.

One of the points which arise and which have been receiving closer attention in some quarters in recent months is whether or not, in relation to the question as to how we treat those with a drug problem (whether we treat them as criminals or not), to remove or reduce, at least, in part, the alternative of imprisonment as far as certain drugs are concerned. The one which has been most spoken of in this particular connection is cannabis. Again, this is not perhaps the occasion to go in depth into those considerations; but I think that at least one of the points that we should need to bear in mind very firmly in considering whether any action of that kind should be taken, would be what we should do if, in fact, we removed the alternative of imprisonment. If you remove it simply, you also must bear in mind that in doing so you remove the alternatives to either imprisonment or a fine—which on many occasions have proved very valuable. I am thinking of such alternatives as community service orders and dealing with those convicted on drugs matters in other ways of that kind.

It may be that a way of achieving that could be found; that is to say, not simply removing imprisonment as a penalty and thereby losing those other (in many cases valuable) alternatives as well. It is, I think, one, and only one, of the things which would have to be given very close and serious consideration if that policy were to be further pursued.

The only other matter that I would mention tonight is a point which arises out of the Home Office Statistics Bulletin, published on 19th July, which is the subject of the noble Earl's Unstarred Question. That is the paragraph on page 2 which says: In 1978 the average age of drugs offenders continued to increase. Of those found guilty of offences involving controlled drugs in 1978, 24 per cent. were under 21 and 17 per cent. were aged 30 or over; in 1977 the corresponding proportions were 24 per cent. and 15 per cent. respectively, and five years earlier, in 1973, they were 44 per cent. and 8 per cent. respectively.". I think that many of your Lordships would find that trend (and is it a growing trend) very interesting, indeed. So often when one looks at this matter one is tempted to interpret it in general terms as tending rather in a reverse direction from what those figures show. What conclusions one draws from them is much more difficult; and still more difficult is it to decide how to act upon any conclusions that one does draw. In some ways, a trend of that kind is perhaps something of a comfort; in other ways, it is a very disturbing one. That is another matter which would have to be borne very carefully in mind in deciding future action on this difficult problem.

That was all that I was proposing to say to your Lordships tonight. I would emphasise my gratitude, I am sure shared by noble Lords in all parts of the House, to the noble Earl for having raised this important matter.

4.19 p.m.

Lord BELSTEAD

My Lords, there is no doubt that in this Unstarred Question the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, is raising a very important issue. The ravages of drugs misuse leave their mark worldwide and the figures published by the Home Office of the use of drugs in the United Kingdom in the year 1978—which are really the subject of the noble Earl's Unstarred Question—undoubtedly point to a pattern of misuse which is increasing. I join with my noble friend Lord Amory in saying that I must admit that before I went to work at the Home Office I was under exactly the same impression as he. I had understood that the incidence of drug misuse and, indeed, the amounts of drugs illegally brought into this country and recovered were reducing. I was wrong; and so, I say with respect, was my noble friend. I join with him in being grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, for raising this debate this evening.

My Lords, the cases of persons whom doctors suspect of being addicted to any one of 14 narcotic drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 are, as noble Lords will know, notified to the chief medical officer at the Home Office. Between the end of 1977 and 1978 this figure rose from about 2,000 to 2,400. There is reason to believe that a partial explanation for the increase of 400 last year lies in improved notification because the Home Office and the Department of Health took special steps during that year to remind doctors of their obligation to notify.

At the same time, my noble friend Lady Macleod is absolutely right to emphasise the limitations of these statistics. They do not include those whom doctors have failed to notify—the noble Earl certainly made that point as well—nor addicts receiving drugs wholly from illicit sources, nor addicts of non-notifiable drugs such as the barbiturates—again mentioned by the noble Earl—which are not yet controlled under the 1971 Act. The figure of 4,100 addicts, which certain reporters in the media seem to prefer to use, is an unofficial aggregate of the number of addicts known at the beginning of the year and those coming to notice during the year. Your Lordships may have seen this figure; that is how it is made up, as we understand it. This figure also has to be treated with some caution since we do not know the reason why 1,700 addicts apparently stopped receiving treatment during the year. We know that 60 of them died during 1978; of the rest, there is no ready means of knowing what proportion withdrew from treatment to maintain their addiction from illicit sources.

As the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, has made clear in his speech, the problem to which the notification statistics do not give us an answer is to quantify the number of persons who may be addicted but who manage to maintain their addiction by resort to the illicit market and who therefore do not come to the notice of the Home Office. This is something which has troubled all who have taken part in this short debate. Perhaps the most scientific indication that we have had of the possible size of this unknown grey area of narcotic addiction is contained in studies which were carried out by Dr. Hamid Ghodse into the drug problems dealt with by 62 London hospital casualty departments. The research of Dr. Ghodse suggests that possibly there are as many persons who are addicted to a narcotic drug and are not notified to the Home Office as there are notified. On that basis, the Home Office figures should be doubled in order to arrive at a realistic figure of the total incidence of narcotic addiction.

My Lords, just to set it in context, that means even if we base our calculations on the much quoted figure of 4,100—which, as I have indicated, we do not regard as altogether valid—the total number of narcotic addicts falls considerably short of 10,000. None the less, it is a terrible figure. I am sorry, but I am afraid that worse is to come. We have to ask the question: How much smuggling of narcotics actually goes on? My noble friend Lady Macleod particularly put this point. We know that in 1976 the customs seized 16.65 kilogrammes of heroin; the figure was 58.40 kilogrammes in 1978, and so far in 1979 it is over 30 kilogrammes. That suggests a growing illicit market in this country. Incidentally, these figures are of seizures by customs officers only and do not include police seizures, which I am not including because police seizures of drugs may be seizures of drugs which have come from perfectly lawful storage within this country and do not affect drugs brought illicitly into the country.

Follow-up investigations by the customs have indicated that a great deal of heroin which has been smuggled in is intended for destinations elsewhere. It is an extraordinary figure, but it was reckoned by the customs that last year 90 per cent. of smuggled-in heroin was destined to be smuggled out again. The most significant factor this year is the substantial quantity of Iranian heroin seized between February and May which I am afraid to say we are sure was aimed almost exclusively at the United Kingdom. This of course has coincided with the period of abnormal unrest and instability in Iran.

I hope that I have not spoken for too long about narcotic addiction; but I have done so in order to show, I hope, the difficulty of assessing the threat from the illicit market. As the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, has said, the problem of drug abuse goes a great deal wider than that. Certain barbiturates, which noble Lords specifically mentioned, often in combination with other drugs and alcohol, seem to pose a numerically larger problem than that presented by heroin. There is no doubt that barbiturates are addictive and both misuse and withdrawal can be highly dangerous. On the recommendations of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Government have decided that they should be brought within the controls of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and the appropriate measures to do so will be brought forward when we have resolved some difficulties concerning the capacity of the Forensic Science Service to play their part in these controls.

May I turn now to what, much more predictably, your Lordships felt was the important part of this debate—namely, the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts. May I at once pay tribute to the work which is being done by the voluntary organisations in this field and, in particular, SCODA, of which the noble Earl is chairman, in co-ordinating that work. So far as the treatment of addicts is concerned, whatever criticisms of detail may be levelled at the present services, the basic policy of providing treatment through, and restricted to, drug treatment clinics has played an important part in at least retarding the rapid growth of narcotic addiction, particularly in the 1960s and early 1970s. If the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, will forgive me, I should not like to follow her up the road of discussing the prescription of drugs by the medical profession. That involves very serious issues of medical freedom, but I take the point of the noble Baroness—as I shall show—that this whole matter must be looked at on a very wide canvas.

The noble Earl has called for more research. One of the difficulties facing health and local authorities in planning services for drug misusers of all kinds is the lack of adequate information about the nature and extent of drugs misuse in their areas. A joint DHSS/NHS working party, which was set up to advise on this problem, has recommended the establishment of a network of communication at local level. The establishment of such a network would involve representatives of both statutory and voluntary organisations, including NHS and local authority officials. The aim would be to establish a system of gathering key information on local problems of drug misuse which would be of use to local authorities in deciding their priorities. However, information gathering can itself put quite a burden upon resources, so the Department is at present on the point of commissioning research to look into the problems of simplifying local information gathering, the results of which it is hoped will minimise the task of the health and local authorities.

May I say that I entirely agree with the noble Earl that we must continue to try to seek ways of advancing in the fields of treatment and rehabilitation. In May of this year the Treatment and Rehabilitation Working Group sent a questionnaire to drug treatment centres throughout England and Wales requesting information about multiple drug users, treatment facilities available outside London, liaison with other treatment centres, treatment policy and the work of drug liaison committees. The replies are at this moment receiving consideration by the working group and I have no doubt that their report and recommendations will be presented to the Advisory Council as a basis for further advice to Ministers as soon as possible.

Finally, on the aspects of treatment and rehabilitation, the Government would acknowledge the initiatives of SCODA in establishing the crisis intervention centre known as Cityroads, to which the noble Earl referred, for the purposes of providing a 24-hour service to young drug misusers who are discovered in London suffering from the effects of drug misuse. This project, which is funded by the London Boroughs Associations and by the Department of Health and was opened in May 1978, is believed to be the first of its kind in Europe. Its work will be reviewed after three years to see if it should continue as part of the normal services. As the noble Earl knows better than I do, the Department of Health has also funded an independent research programme to evaluate the experiment through London University's Birkbeck College.

My noble friend Lady Macleod has called for more visible means of preventing the importation of drugs at ports and airports. Really this was what I had in mind when I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, that I took her point that this must be looked at on a very broad canvas. May I say that the police and customs, acting together, have recently brought about some extremely large seizures of drugs and their joint efforts are continuing. In one recent operation, four and a half tons of cannabis and a quarter of a million pounds in cash were seized and in another one and a half tons of cannabis. I suppose that the sum of human misery in those materials seized really hardly bears thinking about. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the dedication and courage of the young customs officer whose tragic death while carrying out one of the anti-drug-smuggling operations which I have been mentioning was reported recently.

Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!

Lord BELSTEAD

Without men like this, our drug problem would undoubtedly be very much worse. Customs staff at ports and airports are kept as well informed as possible of drug-smuggling trends and new methods of concealment. Mobile task forces and special baggage crews have been established now to add an element of unpredictability to the pattern of control and to enable efforts to be concentrated to meet particular needs.

My noble friend asked me about drug-sniffing dogs. Customs have substantially increased the numbers of heroin-trained drug-detector dogs in service at ports, and have enlarged and modernised their fleet of Revenue cutters to counter smuggling by small craft.

Lord DAVIES of LEEK

My Lords, before the noble Lord makes his final statement, may I say that I have sat through this fascinating discussion and I should like to ask a question anent the misuse of drugs. If the Euthanasia Society are going to publish a document to show people how to commit—shall I call it?—felo-de-se, it may be a philosophical question for some and for others it may be a Christian question about doing away with one's life. This may encourage groups of people to say that drugs of certain potency should be available. I think it is worthwhile getting on the record a request for the Government to exercise their minds over this question. It is more than a philosophical question: it has to do with the basis of, I think, civilisation in our society.

Lord BELSTEAD

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. As he will realise from his experience in Government, I am in fact speaking for two Departments: for the Home Office and for the Department of Health and Social Services. I will undertake to draw to the attention of both Secretaries of State what the noble Lord has said in his intervention at the end of this debate.

May I add one final point. If we are looking to try to keep drugs out as well as we can and if we are trying to support as well as we can the enormously good work done by people like the noble Lord and those working with him in this country, I do not think it is irrelevant to say that one has also to look at the whole problem in an international context. I think your Lordships would like me just to say that the United Kingdom is playing a very active part in the work of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and contributes to the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control, which is trying to tackle the narcotic problem at source by such methods as crop substitution programmes in the areas of what is known as the "golden triangle" in South-East Asia and other places where the plants producing these raw materials are grown. I can assure your Lordships that the Government will continue to give really serious attention to the problem raised by the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, today. In particular, they will consider most carefully the recommendations received from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.