Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-06-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to monitor the effect of the introduction of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

Mike Penning

We are committed to monitoring the impact of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 which commenced on the 26 May.

Section 58 of the Act commits the Secretary of State to review the operation of the Act, prepare a report of the review, and lay a copy of the report before Parliament 30 months after the commencement of the Act. This review will therefore report its findings in late 2018.

Since commencement, the police have made arrests across the country of those involved in the supply of psychoactive substances; a number of head-shops have ceased trading and many more have handed in their remaining stock to be destroyed; and action by the National Crime Agency has resulted in the removal of psychoactive substances from sale by United Kingdom based websites.