Table Of ContentDrug Misuse and
the Law
Drug Misuse and
the Law
by
S BRADSHAW MB ChB
Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not
that all men know the law, but because 'tis
an excuse every man will plead, and no man
can tell how to confute him.
John Selden (1584-1654)
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-01511-5 ISBN 978-1-349-01509-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-01509-2
© 1972 Dr S Bradshaw
Reprint of the original edition 1972
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or
transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without permission.
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Brunei Road Basingstoke
Hampshire England
In collaboration with
WINTHROP LABORATORIES
Winthrop House
Surbiton-Upon-Thames
Surrey England
Acknowledgment
Chapter 3 of this book is a summary of some
Parliamentary discussions regarding the
Misuse of Drugs Bill. Information for this
chapter was taken from reports in Hansard
to which acknowledgment is hereby given.
SBN 333 13560 1
Contents
FOREWORD page 7
INTRODUCTION page 9
PART I-BACKGROUND TO THE ACT
Chapter 1. History of Control of Drug
Misuse in the United Kingdom page 11
Chapter 2. Defects of Existing Legislation page 20
Chapter 3. Parliament and Controversial
Aspects of Drug Misuse and
Control page 22
PART II-THE ACT
Chapter 4. Aims of The Act page 36
Chapter 5. Provisions of The Act page 37
Comments on Certain Provisions page 45
Index to Provisions page 47
APPENDIXA. Substances Scheduled under
The Act-Proprietary
Names, etc page 49
APPENDIX B. Prosecution and Punishment
of Offences under The Act page 65
APPENDIX C. Recognition of Drug Misuse page 69
APPENDIX D. Statutes Concerning the
Supply of Drugs page 73
APPENDIX E. Members of the Advisory
Council page 74
FURTHER READING page 76
GLOSSARY page 77
Foreword
Drug misuse in the United Kingdom has escalated since the early
1960s, and increasingly has affected young persons, even those of
school age; and each of these developments has caused considerable
concern to doctors, educators, social workers, the police, parlia
mentarians, and others. The so-called 'British System' of control of
drugs of dependence, a method that seemed of value at a time when
there was little demand for them, was shown by events to be ineffec
tive when demand increased and cultural attitudes towards such
drugs changed. The Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1964 repre
sented an attempt to bring amphetamines and LSD under a greater
degree of control; but heroin addiction continued to grow rapidly,
and increasingly became the subject of serious concern. The Home
Office Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence studied a number of
aspects of the drug problem in depth, and some of its findings were
published (see Further Reading).
It became clear, in the face of increasing demand for drugs, and the
need to control more closely the prescribing of drugs to addicts, that
new legislation was required, and thus the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971)
came into being. This is a most complex piece of legislation which
replaces previous Dangerous Drugs Acts, and provides for a wide
range of flexible controls, and of penalties for those who transgress
the law.
It is always difficult for people to understand legislation relating to
matters outside their special interests, and in the present case this is
certainly true of non-medical and of most medical people; so that
there was a need for a clear exposition of the provisions and impli
cations of the new Act - in everyday rather than legal phraseology.
Dr Bradshaw has provided this in the present book.
The historical detail of parliamentary proceedings that it contains
makes fascinating reading, and helps to an understanding of how
legislative processes arise within Parliament. However, although Dr
Bradshaw has refrained from comment on any of the points made, his
selection of them for the present volume is nicely judged, and many
readers will doubtless realise that much of what was said in Parliament
arose from belief systems rather than scientific fact. Perusal of the
full reports of the debates on the new Bill and of the debate on the
report on cannabis of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence
would repay the reader of this book who wished to explore this
aspect further.
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This book, together with a commentary on the regulations to be
made under the Act (which will probably be published as a compan
ion item once they are available), should provide an invaluable guide
and book of reference to all those concerned with the medical, social,
educational, and legal aspects of drug misuse. Doctors, educationists,
social workers, the clergy, voluntary workers, and other interested
persons now have at their disposal a short and lucid statement of the
Act and its requirements.
Many countries look to the United Kingdom with interest because
it previously had little or no problem of drug dependence, but has
had to face a rapidly developing problem and to take action. This
book will be of particular value in providing a clear statement about
the new Act that will help such countries to understand the way in
which we have faced up to the problem.
Dr Bradshaw is to be congratulated on providing a clear, readable,
and most useful book which should find its place, not only in official
libraries, but also in smaller departments and in the homes of interested
persons.
P H Connell MD MRCP FRCPsych DPM
Physician in Psychological Medicine
The Bethlem Royal Hospital and The Maudsley Hospital, London.
28 September 1972
8
Introduction
During the last twenty years, and particularly the last decade, there
has been a great increase of drug misuse in various countries,
including the United Kingdom; and one element in efforts to contain
this increase and its many serious consequences is the law.
The Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) is much more than the latest of a
series of United Kingdom statutes relating to drugs (see AppendixD),
for it is intended to be definitive. It is of wide scope, supersedes a
number of the existing Acts, and embodies certain new principles in
relation to the control of drug misuse, and corresponding changes in
the practice of control. Certainly it seemed that a small book like the
present one might prove helpful as a guide in relation to the Act,
particularly for doctors, though pharmacists, teachers, social workers,
and others concerned with the drug problem will also find it useful.
Part I of the book is a background section, describing the 20th
century development of the drug milieu in the United Kingdom in the
context of efforts at control, and the inadequacies of the existing law
that were generally admitted to have been revealed in recent years;
and it then summarises the opinions of informed people - as
expressed in Parliament during passage of the Bill - on major matters
of controversy in relation to control of drug misuse: How best to deal
with the problem of cannabis and that of over-prescribing, police
powers of search, etc. The great complexities of the Act will, it is
hoped, become more comprehensible when viewed in the light of
what is said in this first part of the book.
Part II gives an outline of the aims of the new Act, and then summarises
for the non-legal reader its main provisions. A short commentary on
certain particularly important provisions of the Act, and an Index to
the provisions complete this section.
There are five appendices. Appendix A deals with substances
scheduled under the Act, B with punishment of offences under the
Act, and C with the recognition of drug abuse. Appendix D lists all
United Kingdom statutes that have been or are concerned with the
supply of drugs, and E lists the members of the Advisory Council
on the Misuse of Drugs, which the Act establishes.
Throughout the book, and of set purpose, the term 'addiction' is
mostly used, rather than 'drug dependence'. (And correspondingly
'addict', 'addictive', etc, are mostly preferred.) This is still a very com-
9
mon medical usage, and there are the following extra reasons for its
being appropriate in the present context. During most of the period
covered by the historical section 'addiction' was the only term avail
able; 'addiction' was used in the Parliamentary debates on the Bill,
and has been used in the Bill itself and in certain publications of the
Standing Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence; and 'addict' is
shorter than, for example, 'person suffering from drug dependence of
the opiate type', and is perhaps more readily understood by the lay
reader. None of this, of course, alters the fact that there are good
reasons for preferring the word 'dependence' in all purely scientific
contexts today. The word has been recommended by WHO, and
severe dependence on drugs can occur without any of the physical
element of dependence (characteristic bodily effects on drug
withdrawal) that the word 'addiction' strongly suggests.
Perhaps, for the sake of any non-British readers, it should be stated
here that in the United Kingdom a Parliamentary measure is known
as a Bill (e.g. the Misuse of Drugs Bill) until it becomes law, when it
is known as an Act (e.g. the Misuse of Drugs Act); and that the
numbered Clauses of a Bill become Sections of the Act.
This book was written for persons not on terms of everyday familiarity
with the law by one of their number; and to be read as well as for
reference purposes. No opinions are expressed on controversial
matters. As well as the legal, medical, and pharmaceutical aspects of
drug misuse, there are various social and philosophical aspects that
are perhaps more important, but that, for obvious reasons, receive a
mention here only in the reports of Parliamentary debates in Chapter 3.
I am grateful to Dr Michael Mungavin and Mr James Hotchen MPS
for their help and advice.
How Caple
18 September 1972 S.B.
10
Part I-Background to TheAct
Chapter 1
History of Control of Drug Misuse in the
United Kingdom
This brief historical review does not pretend to be exhaustive. Its
purpose is to help make comprehensible the need for a measure like
the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the concern on certain matters
expressed in Parliament during the Bill's passage, and the import of
various provisions of the A ct.
Nicotine and alcohol aside, serious abuse of drugs - that is, wide
spread abuse, productive of social upset - did not occur in the
United Kingdom before the mid-1950s. Long before then, of course,
there were periods when particular drugs were to some extent abused,
and also some well-known abusers. Thus Coleridge and De Quincey
were opium addicts, and in the middle of the last century the Pharma
ceutical Journal (1850, 9, 591) published this interesting tip on the
weaning of addicts from their laudanum (Tincture of Opium): 'We
have known the object attained by convincing the patient of the
necessity of an effort on his part and directing him to fill up the
bottle with water after each dose has been taken out:
Laudanum was, in fact, readily purchasable from any chemist and
druggist until well into the present century, although opium and all
preparations of it had, under the Pharmacy Act of 1868, to be labelled
'Poison', and, under the Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908, could be
sold only to persons known to the pharmacist concerned.
During the First World War addiction to cocaine became something
of a probiem among members of the Services, and before, during, and
after that war the barbiturates were also subject to some abuse in this
country. Under the Defence ofthe Realm (Consolidation) Regulations
1917, therefore, it became an offence to supply certain drugs to
members of the armed forces except on the authority of a doctor's
prescription - barbitone, cocaine, diamorphine, Indian hemp, opium,
and morphine among others. This was the first occasion on which
supply of a drug was limited to those for whom it had been medically
prescribed.
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