The Conservative MP Crispin Blunt has admitted using the party drug poppers, and denounced attempts by the government to ban the substances as “foolish”.

Blunt, who is the chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs select committee, was speaking during a debate on the government’s psychoactive substances bill, which seeks to outlaw certain legal recreational drugs. The legislation would ban alkyl nitrites – commonly known as poppers.

An amendment tabled by the shadow home secretary, Andy Burnham, which would have excluded poppers from the bill, was voted down by 228 votes to 309. The bill passed to its final stage in the Commons before it will pass into law.

“There are some times, Madam Deputy Speaker, when something is proposed which becomes personal to you and you realise that the government is about to do something fantastically stupid and I think in those circumstances one has a duty to speak up,” said Blunt, who has been MP for Reigate since 1997.

“I use poppers. I out myself as a poppers user. And would be directly affected by this legislation. And I was astonished to find that it’s proposed they be banned and, frankly, so were very many gay men.”

Poppers are especially popular among gay men, and used to prepare for sex and enhance sexual pleasure. The proposed laws would criminalise the sale of the drug, but not those who buy it.

The draft legislation has been criticised for containing too broad a definition of psychoactive substances. Retailers, drugs companies and even church groups have raised concerns about the unintended consequences of the bill, which defines the target of the ban as products that cause psychoactivity in humans.

After a short inquiry into the proposed law, the home affairs select committee produced a report (pdf) which concluded that poppers should not be banned since, according to the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs, their misuse was “not seen to be capable of having harmful effects sufficient to constitute a societal problem”.



The legislation “simply serves to bring the whole law into disrepute”, said Blunt. “Choose to ban [poppers], which I’ve been using, and I know have been used ... for decades, and respect for the law is going to fly out the window.”

He pointed to evidence given to the home affairs select committee by the Gay Men’s Health Collective, which argued that a ban on poppers could increase the use of class A and B drugs as well as transmission of sexually transmitted infections.

“The issue is about supply and, what it might do to someone like me, is to put me into the hands of the criminals to get my supply for something that I used to think was perfectly OK,” said Blunt, who added: “Like me, obviously not me, because I respect the law of the land.”

The report from the home affairs select committee also recommended that nitrous oxide - known as laughing gas - should be reviewed by the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs to consider whether it should be controlled under the existing laws.

Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the committee, said it had unanimously recommended that poppers should not be banned.

In a letter to Vaz’s committee on Tuesday, a Home Office minister, Mike Penning, indicated the government could back down on its proposed poppers ban and add it to the list of exempt substances without the need for passing new laws.



The minister said the Home Office alongside the Department of Health would consider whether to exempt poppers from the blanket ban after the bill had passed.

He wrote: “The government recognises that representations have been made to the effect that ‘poppers’ have a beneficial health and relationship effect in enabling anal sex for some men who have sex with men, amid concern about the impact of the ban on these men.

“In consultation with the Department of Health and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Home Office will now consider whether there is evidence to support these claims and, if so, whether it is sufficient to justify exempting the alkyl nitrites group (or individual substances in the group).”