Blanket ban on 'legal highs' is 'fanciful and fraught with difficulties', claims former Justice Secretary

A blanket ban on so-called legal highs is “fanciful and fraught with difficulties”, according to a former SNP Justice Secretary.

Kenny MacAskill, who served in the Scottish Government cabinet between 2007 and 2014, claimed a law targeting new psychoactive substances (NPS) would do little to tackle the problem.

Legislation to ban NPS throughout the UK is currently passing through the House of Commons.

RELATED CONTENT

Government's community justice reforms 'recipe for obfuscation, if not disaster', says former Justice Secretary

Call for further prison staff training on 'legal highs'

Drug-related deaths reach record high

However, an influential committee of MPs warned in October that the Psychoactive Substances Bill was being rushed amid a failure to adequately define a psychoactive substance.  

Writing in The Herald last month, MacAskill signalled his support for sweeping reform of current drug laws as he called for its full devolution from Westminster to Holyrood.

In a follow-up piece for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies think-tank, the SNP MSP added: “The nature of the product being plied is also changing.

“As many challenges now come from so called legal highs as from currently classified drugs. If law enforcement struggles to cope with illegal drugs how can it be expected to address legal ones?

“Suggestions of simply classifying them all as illegal are fanciful and fraught with difficulties. Moreover, a significant minority views the existing legislation with disdain or contempt; always a difficult place for law enforcement given the requirement for laws to be respected as well as enforced.

“It’s not simply alienated youth but many middle aged and middle classes who scorn aspects of it.”

MacAskill said the “War on Drugs has failed by any criteria” as he suggested drugs be treated as a public health problem rather than a law enforcement one.

The Edinburgh Eastern MSP has called for a commission to “depoliticise” what he terms “one of the great social ills of our time”.

He added: “Political rhetoric veers towards the machismo not the social, health, educational and economic answers that are required. Vested party interests dominate, not the collective well-being of our society.

“To be fair, efforts have been made before and those involved treated disgracefully. However, it is still the basis for progress. The political steer to be given has to be to move from viewing it as a law enforcement issue to a public health one.

“Thus charged, a commission could look at the solutions being pursued elsewhere in the world to see what might be applicable here.”