Misuse of Drugs Advisory Council Minutes 2021 to 2023 (FOI)

​​​Request

Please provide the Minutes of the meetings of the Misuse of Drugs Advisory Council since meeting number 89 held in September 2021.

Response

The Minutes of the following Misuse of Drugs Advisory Council (MDAC) meetings are attached:

14 December 2021​

20211214 MDAC Minutes_Redacted.pdf

12 May 2022

20220512 MDAC Minutes_Redacted.pdf

13 December 2022

MDAC minutes_Redacted 13 December 2022.pdf

23 March 2023

MDAC minutes_Redacted 23 March 2023.pdf​

Redactions have been made to the minutes in consideration of Freedom of Information legislation to protect the privacy of individuals, protect the commercial interests of the Government of Jersey and / or others from prejudicial impact, ensure that policies under development by the Government of Jersey, or others, are not prejudiced, and to reduce the impact on the security of the island. Redactions have been colour coded for ease of reference, as follows:

​

Articles applied

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.

Article 33 - Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or

(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).​

Article 35 - Formulation and development of policies

Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.

Article 42 - Law enforcement

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice –

(a) the prevention, detection or investigation of crime, whether in Jersey or elsewhere;

Public Interest Test

Articles 35 and 42 are qualified exemptions and, as such, Health and Community Services (HCS) has conducted a prejudice test as required by law. 

HCS has assessed whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in supplying the information is outweighed by the prejudice that would likely result by doing so. It is recognised that there is a public interest in transparency. However, having considered the public interest, HCS has concluded that the public interest in disclosing this information is outweighed by the potential prejudice that would likely result.