Dan Jarvis – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2014-04-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to give local authorities greater powers to deal with the consumption of legal highs in a public place; and what support he is providing to councils who wish to put by-laws in place to prevent such consumption.

Norman Baker

As stated in my answer to the Honourable Member of 7 April 2014, Official
Report, column 112W, on 12 December 2013 I announced a review by an expert panel to look
at how the UK’s response to new psychoactive substances, sometimes inaccurately
called ‘legal highs’, can be enhanced beyond the existing measures. The expert panel includes
a senior policy adviser from the Local Government Association to inform the
work of the panel from a local government perspective, including whether
existing by-laws may be used to tackle this damaging trade. This work is
ongoing, and the panel is due to report its recommendations by the end of
spring 2014.

To support local authorities, the Home Office published guidance in December
2013 setting out the range of legislative tools local authorities can use to
tackle the ‘head shops’ where these substances are often sold. This was developed in
collaboration with the Department for Communities and Local Government, the
Local Government Association and the Trading Standards Institute and can be
found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/action-against-head-shops

The guidance covers offences head shops may be committing under the Misuse of
Drugs Act 1971, the Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985, and various
consumer protection regulations.

The Home Office has also provided targeted support to local authorities with
testing of new psychoactive substances through the Forensic Early Warning
System, to help them take action against the sale of these products by
identifying the contents.