AAL Commercial Awareness: Poppers, decriminalisation, and the legal highs ban

Feb 10, 2018

Written By Jack J Collins, Editor, AllAboutLaw.co.uk

Alkyl Nitrates are far more commonly known by their ‘street’ name – Poppers. Since the early 1970’s they’ve been used around the world, for two main recreational purposes.

The first of these is for use in clubs as a brief high, but the second, and more domesticated use, is as a sexual experience enhancer for homosexual men, as the effect of poppers is to relax your muscles – thus sex is easier and more pleasurable.

The Pyschoactive Substances Act, which comes into force in April 2016, originally was set to criminalise a trade in all legal highs. However, as David Nutt quite rightly pointed out on The Guardian’s Comment is Free page, most of the drugs that the bill’s proponents are talking about, are already illegal.

The only things which the ban is set to make illegal are a few new strains of “synthetic cannabinoids, weak amphetamine-like stimulants, nitrous oxide, and alkyl nitrates” or poppers.

These last two mentioned, are amongst the safest drugs that are known to us – Nitrous Oxide has been used for nigh on two centuries as a method of pain control, and alkyl nitrates have been an angina painkiller for over a century.

Over the last week, however, poppers have finally been excluded from the terms of the Bill, after a backlash from the gay community. One Conservative MP, Crispin Blunt, told the commons that he was a past and present poppers user, and decried the plans as “fantastically stupid.”

The exclusion was made after the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs stepped in to say that they felt only substances which “directly stimulate or depress the central nervous system are psychoactive”, and therefore only these substances should be considered within the blanket ban.

They went on to inform the home secretary, Theresa May, that not only were poppers actually not even a psychoactive drug, but they did not display any of the harmful effects which would suggest that they caused even the slightest social problem.

Home Office minister Karen Bradley was the one to break the news that poppers would no longer be included in the ban, telling the ACMD committee that “given due consideration, the government agrees with your advice and interpretation of the definition. We do so in the understanding that ‘poppers’ have these unique indirect effects.”

Nitrous Oxide, however, will still be considered illegal, despite the fact that scientific studies have proved only this month that inhalation of the substance is extremely useful in dealing with traumatic situations by reducing negative feelings in those subject to the situations.

This comes in a week where an international commission of medical experts has called for the decriminalisation of drugs worldwide, stating that current drug policies are causing violence, death and health problems, as well as taking away human rights.

They state that the draconian drug laws that govern most of the world have done more harm than good, spreading misery whilst failing to curb drug use, and linking the drug world with that of violent crime and poverty.

Dr Chris Beyer, a member of the commission and a Doctor of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Guardian that “the goal of prohibiting all use, possession, production, and trafficking of illicit drugs is the basis of many of our national drug laws, but these policies are based on ideas about drug use and drug dependence that are not scientifically grounded.”

The commission has called on the UN to propose the decriminalisation of minor drug felonies such as use, possession and sale of small quantities, as well as phasing out any sort of military force against drug networks – all this does, say the commission, is make them arm themselves to fight back, fuelling violence.

In perhaps the most damning indictment of the results, the commission have stated that the war on drugs has fundamentally failed, and that prohibitionist policies have made the world a worse place – especially in terms of racial bias of arrest and sentencing.

“In the USA in 2014, African American men were more than five times more likely than white people to be incarcerated for drug offences in their lifetime, although there is no significant difference in rates of drug use among these populations. The impact of this bias on communities of people of colour is inter-generational and socially and economically devastating.”

It also highlights the countries that have already moved down the road of decriminalisation, and how that has worked in their favour. Portugal and the Czech Republic made this move earlier in the decade, and have seen significant financial benefits, less arrests, alongside no significant increase in drug use.

It allowed the Portuguese government to control an HIV epidemic which was based arounf unsafe needle use, and stopped one from happening at all in the Czech Republic, demonstrating the visible public health benefits linked to decriminalisation.

Against the advice and grain of the medical experts, it seems like a very odd time to be introducing the Psychoactive Substances Bill in the UK, especially with a UN special conference on drug use just around the corner.

For now though, the gay community can celebrate a minor victory in that the law has been changed from one which actively discriminated against their community, to one which is slightly suspect in that it seems to be , in the words of Nutt, nothing more than “a veiled attack on pleasure.”

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