NPS Act V1. Blankets? Just Say No!

[ScotchMist]

The Queen just said "psychoactive drugs". Almost as funny as listening to Gordon Brown trying to say mephedrone.

In fact, so incongruous was it, I missed what she bleedin' said about psychoactive drugs.

Chucked in nicely after extremism...

Measures will also be brought forward to promote social cohesion and protect people by tackling extremism. New legislation will modernise the law on communications data, improve the law on policing and criminal justice, and ban the new generation of psychoactive drugs.

 

[Ceres]

so a ban and cimrinalisation of possession of all psychoactive substances except tobacco and alcohol.

Good call, tobacco and alcohol being the most harmless of all drugs.

Damn, no more coffee.

 

[Bella Figura]

 

[ScotchMist]

Imagine those bars are yours/our prison cells that's where they want us all...

 

[Si Dread]

. . . she'll be dead before even half this shit gets implemented..!

So that was just one line dedicated to our little problem then, was it..?

The drugs problem is too wide-spread & complicated to be controlled purely with legislation. Best of luck with that.

 

[ScotchMist]

Just saw on another site that the date is set as July 1st for the EU MXE/MDPV ban....

 

[blondin]

Its pandora's box isn't it- i.e once its out there it will always be available one way or another so banning just makes a dangerous scene far more iffy with vendors selling what ever shit they please and HR even more importent on sites like this.
heroin and coke have been illegal for 90 years or so and that really helped stem the flow and use..

 

[Si Dread]

Just saw on another site that the date is set as July 1st for the EU MXE/MDPV ban....

That's been on the cards for awhile.

This, does not look good! I wonder how much harder in real life this legislation is going to be to implement, than it is to plan... I can't see the SNP getting in the way of any of this legislation, but there might still be some sort unexpected difficulties. Who knows what the future will hold, but they have certainly seen what's going on & they got bigger plans than ever to put a stop to it.

Psychoactive Substances Bill

“New legislation will… ban the new generation of psychoactive drugs.”
The purpose of the Bill is to:

• Protect hard-working citizens from the risks posted by untested, unknown and
potential harmful drugs.
• Create a blanket ban which would prohibit and disrupt the production,
distribution, sale and supply of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in the
UK.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• Protecting UK citizens from the risks posed by untested, unknown and
potentially harmful NPS.
• Complementing the existing UK drug legislative framework in the Misuse of
Drugs Act 1971.
• Providing a proportionate but robust response to the availability of NPS and
the problems they cause.

The main elements of the Bill are:

• The Bill would make it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, possess
with intent to supply, import or export psychoactive substances; that is, any
substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a
psychoactive effect. The maximum sentence would be seven years’
imprisonment.
• Substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, food and medical products,
would be excluded from the scope of the offence, as would controlled drugs,
which would continue to be regulated by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
• As recommended last year by the NPS Expert Panel, the Bill would focus on
the supply of NPS and so would not include a personal possession offence.

Specific substances will continue to be controlled under the existing Misuse of
Drugs Act legislation (including possession) where they can be identified and
their harms can be adequately assessed by the ACMD.

• This legislation is supported by the Devolved Administrations and the Scottish
government and the National Assembly for Wales have published their own
reports calling for a blanket ban
• The Bill would include provision for civil sanctions – prohibition notices and
prohibition orders (breach of the latter would be a criminal offence) – to
enable the police and local authorities to adopt a proportionate response to
the supply of NPS in appropriate cases.
• The Bill would also provide powers to seize and destroy NPS and powers to
search persons, premises and vehicles, as well as to enter premises by
warrant if necessary.

from - http://psychedelicsociety.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/05/27/12/46/07/780/nps.pdf

 

[Ismene]

So if they're legal to possess presumably you can order them freely from Europe for personal use with no problem?

EDIT: Ah - just noticed the bit where it says the police have "powers to seize".

 

[Si Dread]

So if they're legal to possess presumably you can order them freely from Europe for personal use with no problem?

EDIT: Ah - just noticed the bit where it says the police have "powers to seize".

I bolded another slight crimp in your plan.

Psychoactive Substances Bill

“New legislation will… ban the new generation of psychoactive drugs.”

The purpose of the Bill is to:
• Protect hard-working citizens from the risks posted by untested, unknown and
potential harmful drugs.
• Create a blanket ban which would prohibit and disrupt the production,
distribution, sale and supply of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in the
UK.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• Protecting UK citizens from the risks posed by untested, unknown and
potentially harmful NPS.
• Complementing the existing UK drug legislative framework in the Misuse of
Drugs Act 1971.
• Providing a proportionate but robust response to the availability of NPS and
the problems they cause.

The main elements of the Bill are:

• The Bill would make it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, possess
with intent to supply, import or export psychoactive substances; that is, any
substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a
psychoactive effect. The maximum sentence would be seven years’
imprisonment.
• Substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, food and medical products,
would be excluded from the scope of the offence, as would controlled drugs,
which would continue to be regulated by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
• As recommended last year by the NPS Expert Panel, the Bill would focus on
the supply of NPS and so would not include a personal possession offence.
Specific substances will continue to be controlled under the existing Misuse of

Drugs Act legislation (including possession) where they can be identified and
their harms can be adequately assessed by the ACMD.

• This legislation is supported by the Devolved Administrations and the Scottish
government and the National Assembly for Wales have published their own
reports calling for a blanket ban
• The Bill would include provision for civil sanctions – prohibition notices and
prohibition orders (breach of the latter would be a criminal offence) – to
enable the police and local authorities to adopt a proportionate response to
the supply of NPS in appropriate cases.
• The Bill would also provide powers to seize and destroy NPS and powers to
search persons, premises and vehicles, as well as to enter premises by
warrant if necessary.

...looks worryingly air-tight.

But let's keep our panties untwisted for now, shall we folks. Let's look at how little damage to the popularity of MDMA it did to ban the drug just as it was only barely becoming popular. Lets remember that despite being illegal for 100 years our country is awash with cannabis resin that is definitely imported, as well as tons of cocaine & heroin. LSD is as popular as it ever was, as far as I can tell & although it might not be the easiest to synth, it must be one of the single easiest recreational drug to import & export! Ecstasy tablets are rarely produced in-country. Precursors for all sorts of drugs still circulate the globe in humongous shipments & sometimes, new discoveries are made that flood the planet with good quality dance drugs. Pharmaceutical supplies are constantly being misplaced & misdirected & often end up on the black market. China will still be shipping little bags of this & that, disguised as model paint, in 100 years time! The Darknet hasn't even got out of the starting-blocks yet.

The options available to the average drugs using punter have widened incredibly in the last few years & there's nothing to suggest legislation of any sort will do anything to inhibit Britains phenomenal appetite for recreational substances!

The World of Drugs is your Oyster!

 

[Ismene]

The darkweb will save us all - or it'll save LSD aficianados anyway, not so sure about the white powder fans.

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

It will kill some people with significant benzo habits who don't have the savvy of knowing there are other places to go.

The legislation replaces the right, encased in hundreds of years of law, that things that are not specifically banned are permitted.

Along with the threat to our human rights through ever-increasing creeping communications spying legislation, this makes this Queens speech the most insidious, fascist-like swathe of policy ever inflicted on this country.

This is dangerous stuff.

 

[Si Dread]

I am not that fond of the miserable old cunt, as I am sure you are all well aware. But these fucking tories do actually worry me now.

Notice much mention of curbing greedy bankers, off-shore tax havens such as Jersey or peadophile princes & government ministers..? Thought not.

 

[Si Dread]

Government Just Banned Everything

Government Just Banned Everything

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/05/27/the-government-just-banned-everything

Even by the standards of modern legislation, the psychoactive substances bill is startlingly inane. It seems to ban any substance which can cause a mental or emotional reaction. As must be obvious, that's almost everything in the world. Did this taste remind you of your mother's cooking? It's a psychoactive substance. Did it bring you a moment of happiness? It's a psychoactive substance. The government is about to ban almost everything.

This is not, to be fair, the legislation. This is just the advert. But the description of the bill in the Queen's Speech is troubling enough.

"The Bill would make it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, possess with intent to supply, import or export psychoactive substances; that is, any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect. The maximum sentence would be seven years’ imprisonment."

Note the line "any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect".

That therefore includes all substances, given that at the point someone was caught by police it would only be pertinent if they intended to give it to other people.

The World Health Organisation defines psychoactive as:

"Psychoactive substances are substances that, when taken in or administered into one's system, affect mental processes, e.g. cognition or affect."

So at this stage everything is included.

There are, of course, rather substantial caveats. The next section says:

"Substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, food and medical products, would be excluded from the scope of the offence, as would controlled drugs, which would continue to be regulated by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971."

So existing illegal drugs are exempt. So are existing mind-altering drugs which are legal, such as alcohol. Food is exempt, which gets rid of our 'mum's food' example above. And so is caffeine, although it seems that whoever wrote it did not know that theobromine has a stimulant effect on the brain and is found in tea and chocolate. Chocolate will be OK because of the exemption on food, but hot chocolate won't. So that might need fixing before they end up criminalising half the country.

You'll notice as well that solvents aren't mentioned. The food exemption also raises the question of what you do about people who cook legal-high versions of cannabis into cakes or biscuits. Professor David Nutt's plans for a safer version of alcohol, which could save millions of lives, would be illegal right off the bat. In fact, it's worth considering for a moment how far-reaching these plans are. The world is now illegal until proven otherwise.

That seems to stretch what might be considered the valid powers of the state into the world of fiction.

How has it happened that such a nonsensical idea could find its way into a Queen's Speech? The story starts in New Zealand. When they experimented with a different approach, world governments realised that being sensible about legal highs meant bringing the war on drugs to its knees.

This is their problem: Once a new legal high is blacklisted, those clever chemists alter its composition just enough that a new one does not fall under the remit of the law and can be freely sold. Chemists – especially those with the appropriate financial incentive – typically work faster than legislators.

New Zealand had a particular problem with this. It's out in the middle of nowhere and there aren't many people living there. Drug smugglers weren't really keen on finding routes into the country. But demand still existed, because Kiwis are humans and if you give humans the opportunity they will take drugs.

So legal highs were very popular in New Zealand. The government came to a sensible solution. It would offer drug designers the chance to get approval for their products if they could convince a Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority they were safe. It was a great idea and passed with just one vote against. And then it all went wrong.

Because the world is sillier than any of us are really prepared to admit, it went wrong not because of a backlash by drug prohibitionists, but because of animal rights activists. The interim licensing sections were repealed and a section added banning the advisory committee from authorising a product where the trial for its use involved the use of an animal.

Putting aside the eccentricities of Kiwi politics for a moment, the reasonable original proposal was profoundly dangerous for supporters of the war on drugs. It threatened the idea that drugs must be banned, regardless of harm, out of some quasi-religious anti-intoxification agenda. It introduced the notion that drug regulation should take place on the basis of evidence of harm, rather than some sort of historic crusade. Basically, it was sensible. And because it was sensible, it was a threat to the global system of drug regulation.

So if you can't do that - for fear of undermining half a century of madness - you have to go the other way and ban everything until its proved it won't do anything in your head. That is the oh-so-sober suggestion of the drug warriors: they want to ban things which make the brain do things. It's basically a war on subjectivity. A child would know it was madness. Only a civil servant could think it was sound policy.

It's easy to laugh, but what has happened here is a dark legal turning point in British history. Previously, everything was legal unless the government passed legislation outlawing it. That is the benefit of not having a constitution – your freedoms are not granted, they are only ever taken. It makes legislation a sober undertaking which demands responsibility and sincerity from those who write and vote on it. It is the great achievement of British society: the idea that the people are free and the government must justify its intrusions, not the other way round.

This is the opposite. It is the spilling of the legislative ink, so that it covers everything. It is the rank opportunism of the state at its worst. And it is contrary to the legal basis upon which this country has operated for hundreds of years.

 

[ScotchMist]

Government should be banned, everytime I see, hear, read about them and their shite enters my system it definitely alters my mood...

BAN IT ALL...! We're not listening anyway..

 

[foolsgold]

this is going to kill people simple as that and i could easily be one of the ones it takes out

 

[velmwend]

They'll just drive more folks to use the Tor markets and bulk European supply.

 

[BecomingJulie]

Anyone else think the "Animal Rights" protestors in NZ may have been a false-flag operation?

 

[rc_benzo]

The UK Government Just banned every phsychoactive substance.

UK Government Just Banned Everything

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/05/27/the-government-just-banned-everything

You can still bypass this law by creating inactive, non-psychoactive drugs that metabolize into active ones.

A good example is Benzobarbital. It is inactive and completely legal, however when in your liver, 70% of it is metabolized into Phenobarbital, which is a powerful, active, long-acting barbiturate

Another example is Ketazolam. By it self it is inactive, however, in your liver it metabolizes entirely into Diazepam, which is obviously active.

This can be done with a lot of substances.

What do you guys think? Will the law go through?

 

[foolsgold]

They'll just drive more folks to use the Tor markets and bulk European supply.

no way would i risk importing now not for a few years most likely it will be to on top