The UK House of Commons passed last week the psychoactive substance bill that bans any "psychoactive substance," which are basically anything that can affect the brain. A parliament member has called this new bill, "one of the stupidest, most dangerous and unscientific pieces of drug legislation ever."
Labour MP Paul Flynn, in a motion he sponsored in the parliament, called for the House of Commons to condemn the scientific illiteracy seen in the bill, according to Buzzfeed. Some experts said the term "psychoactive substance" is very broad that the smell of bacon can also be part of the ban. The bill was created to help minimize the rise of "legal highs," which are chemical compounds made to go around the loopholes of the law.
Flynn's motin states that they are "appalled that the Bill is evidence-free and prejudice-rich in disregarding the counterproductive, harmful results of similar bills in Ireland and Poland" and that "the Reitox Poland report from 2013 shows that country's number of legal high-related poisoning three years after their ban are above pre-ban levels". He cited many other countries that passed a legal-high ban and saw instead more detrimental effects among its citizens.
Politics reported that the new Psychoactive Substances Bill doesn't criminalize users. The law is still not that clear. Possession will be considered an offense in prison, but there are no concrete rules on how it will work if the substances are bought from foreign websites. MPS want to make it clear that they don't want to go after the users, but the bigger guys, who are the dealers and producers.
Meanwhile, the Huffington Post wrote that the Psychoactive Substances Bill, which was agreed by the House of Parliament Tuesday, was met with much resistance from the Liberal Democrats. The opposition called for an independent, objective, and scientific review on all current drug laws to determine whether or not new laws are necessary.
There are those who believe that the new Psychoactive Substances Bill would only lead to more criminality, confusion, and even death.
