Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Deferred
Increasing benzodiazepine use and its link to drug deaths causes concern.
Conclusion
We are concerned about the increasing prevalence of benzodiazepine use, and its implication in drug misuse deaths, across the UK. We await the outcome of the Home Office’s consultation on the creation of a new offence to better enable law enforcement to prove the illicit use of pill presses. (Paragraph 43) Drugs 73
Government Response Summary
The government shares the committee's concerns, notes steps already taken to control benzodiazepines, and commits to providing an update on the pill press consultation outcome by 18 December 2023.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Government will provide the Committee with an update on the outcome of the consultation on or before 18 December 2023, once the consultation responses have been analysed. The Government shares the Committee’s concerns on the misuse of benzodiazepines and the recent rise in drug misuse deaths in which benzodiazepines have been implicated. We have taken steps to address this threat, including controlling three new benzodiazepines under Class C of the Misuse of Drugs Act following advice from the ACMD. Earlier this year, the Government consulted on proposed new offences that would criminalise the making, modifying, supplying, offering to supply and possession of articles for use in serious crime, with the intention that this would include pill presses to disrupt the manufacture of illicitly produced benzodiazepines by organised crime groups.