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A tough drugs and crime bill that some observers hoped was only a campaign tool for the Labor Party in advance of next month's general election has passed both houses of parliament and is set to become the law of the land. The bill, launched as part of a populist Labor "tough on crime" crusade before the election, was approved earlier by the House of Commons and rushed through the House of Lords during "wash-up week" when last-minute parliamentary business is taken care of, and received Royal Assent on April 7. Its various provisions will take effect as the British government enacts commencement orders.

Conceived in Prime Minister Tony Blair's office as a show of toughness designed to blunt Conservative attacks, the act bypassed the government's own drug advisory experts. Attacked by MPs, leading drug policy organizations, and civil liberties organizations, the bill nonetheless passed under the parliamentary discipline exercised by Blair's Labor Party and with the agreement of the opposition Conservatives and even the Liberal Democrats.

Paul Flynn

"This bill was conceived in prejudice, written in ignorance and is being enacted with incompetence," said Labor MP Paul Flynn during debate earlier this month. Flynn is the leading exponent of ending drug prohibition in the British parliament. "Those who are supporting it will come to rue the day when this piece of legislative garbage went through the House. Every organization of people who are knowledgeable about the drugs world has opposed the bill. The government has had no support for it. They did not even go to their advisory counsel to ask him for an opinion."

"This is a travesty," said Danny Kushlick of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation as the bill moved through the House of Lords. "The bill has no support and is universally criticized by all sides. The passing of this legislation makes a mockery of the entire apparatus of the legislative process."

Drawing the most attention is the bill's criminalization of the possession and sale of fresh psychedelic mushrooms, mostly psilocybe cubensis. Although psychedelics were outlawed under Britain's existing anti-drug legislation, the old law only criminalized the possession and use of processed mushrooms. As a result, a thriving industry of psychedelic mushroom sellers has sprung up in the Sceptered Isle and previous government efforts to suppress have been blocked by the courts. Under the new law, fresh psychedelic mushrooms move from being a legal, taxable product to being scheduled as a Class A drug -- those drugs classified as most dangerous -- along with heroin and cocaine. Possession or sale of said mushrooms could now bring a life sentence.

"By no stretch of the imagination can you equate magic mushrooms with heroin or cocaine," said Lord Benjamin Mancroft, a member of the all-party group on the misuse of drugs and chairman of Mentor UK, a group that seeks to reduce drug misuse by young people. "There's no evidence magic mushrooms are addictive, cause harm to people, or are a public order problem. The bill is completely disproportionate," he said during debate in the House of Lords. Mancroft also complained that the government pushed the bill through without a chance for proper debate in an apparent deal between Labor, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats.

"We are banning psilocybin, a natural product that will disappear from the market, possibly to be replaced by drugs such as fly agaric, a far more dangerous drug," he said. "It's election politics pure and simple."

According to the British Home Office, the criminalization of mushrooms should be in place in time for June's annual Glastonbury Festival, when British counterculture gathers by the thousands. When it does come into effect, magic mushroom retailers have vowed to challenge it, saying it contravenes European free trade regulations.

But while the new law's magic mushroom provision has drawn the most attention, the drug bill also contains a number of other retrograde features:

• A new offense of aggravated supply similar to "drug-free zone" sentencing enhancements common in the United States. People who sell drugs near schools, routes to school, or use minors as couriers would be subject to stiffer penalties.
• Possession with intent to supply. The law creates a presumption that those in possession of "more drugs than is reasonable for personal use" are guilty of possession with intent.
• Drug searches. Police would be required to obtain written consent for "intimate searches," but if the person refuses to consent and is later charged with a drug offense that "unreasonable refusal to consent to an intimate body search" would count against the suspect in court.
• Extended detention of drug suspects. Under current law, police can hold suspected drug traffickers for up to 96 hours. The new law doubles the period of allowable detention to 192 hours. The provision was described as helping ensure suspects are detained long enough for swallowed drugs to pass through their systems.
• Increases in police ability to demand drug tests from arrested persons.
• Forced drug abuse assessment and treatment. The law allows police to order suspects to submit to a drug assessment and drug treatment and makes failure to attend drug treatment a crime.
• Anti-Social Behavior Orders. The law allows police and courts to include a directive requiring drug treatment as part of such orders.

And British drug reformers have their work cut out for them. They will work to undo the damage and possibly block some provisions from coming into effect, said Transform. "The various clauses of the bill are now subject to commencement orders and many of them will have consultations on how they will function in practice," the group noted. "Some of the clauses may never come into law, and there is considerable scope remaining to ensure that some of the clauses are modified or repealed."

In the meantime, British drug users are now subject to new, more intense efforts at repression and Prime Minister Tony Blair can now polish his "tough on drugs" credentials as he campaigns to retain his seat on May 5.

A parliamentary report on the new drug bill is available online here.

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