Drugs chief: Alcohol more dangerous than ecstasy, LSD and cannabis

[Chiral]

The British Government's chief drug adviser has sparked controversy by claiming ecstasy, LSD and cannabis are less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol.

Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, attacked the decision to make cannabis a class B drug.

He accused former home secretary Jacqui Smith, who reclassified the drug, of "distorting and devaluing" scientific research.

Prof Nutt said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness. And he claimed advocates of moving ecstasy into class B from class A had "won the intellectual argument".

All drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, should be ranked by a "harm" index, he said, with alcohol coming fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates, and methadone.

Tobacco should rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy.

Prof Nutt said: "No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is one of scale and degree. We need a full and open discussion of the evidence and a mature debate about what the drug laws are for - and whether they are doing their job."

In a lecture and briefing paper for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London, Prof Nutt attacked what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from other, illegal, drugs.

He also repeated his claim that the risks of taking ecstasy are no worse than riding a horse.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Prof Nutt's views are his own and do not reflect the views of Government. The Government is clear - we are determined to crack down on all illegal substances and minimise their harm to health and society as a whole.

SOURCE

[Xenodimensional]

 

 

[ballzac]

[JDanger]

^Me three.

[JDanger]

And on that note, we all spoke too soon.

The UK's chief drugs adviser has been sacked by home secretary Alan Johnson after criticising government policies.

Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C.

He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said drugs classification was being politicised.

The home secretary said he had "lost confidence" in his advice and asked him to step down.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is the UK's official drugs advisory body.

Earlier this week Prof Nutt used a lecture at King's College, London, to attack what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs.

The professor said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness, and claimed those who advocated moving ecstasy into Class B had "won the intellectual argument".

Ecstasy horse claim

Public concern over the links between high-strength cannabis, known as skunk, and mental illness led the government to reclassify cannabis to Class C last year.

In the past, Prof Nutt has also claimed that taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse.

In a letter, the home secretary wrote: "I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy and have therefore lost confidence in your ability to advise me as Chair of the ACMD.

"I would therefore ask you to step down from the Council with immediate effect."

In his reply, Prof Nutt said he was "disappointed" by the sentiments expressed by Mr Johnson.

He added: "Whilst I accept that there is a distinction between scientific advice and government policy there is clearly a degree of overlap.

"If scientists are not allowed to engage in the debate at this interface then you devalue their contribution to policy making and undermine a major source of carefully considered and evidence-based advice."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8334774.stm

Sigh.

[Chiral]

The never ending battle between conservative Christians and the free mind blazes on again in earnest.

double sigh..

[ballzac]

I wonder why they are called an 'advisor' when they're told what to advise.

[Chiral]

This story has been building and building into some sort hysterical reactions..check out what's happening now..

SOURCE

The Government's drugs policy has descended into chaos with advisers poised to quit over the sacking of Whitehall's chief drugs expert, Professor David Nutt.

The Sunday Telegraph understands that members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) have been discussing a number of options to protest against the removal of their chairman, Professor Nutt, by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary.

A mass resignation is believed to be among the tactics being considered by the 30 unpaid members, including some of the country's leading doctors, psychiatrists, chemists and charity workers, who advise ministers on the harmfulness of drugs so that penalties can be set proportionately.

In another embarrassment for the Home Secretary, new figures seen by The Sunday Telegraph have revealed that the average fine for possessing crack cocaine has fallen to less than the cost of a parking ticket.

The average punishment imposed by the courts for possessing the Class A drug was a fine of just over £38, less than two-thirds of the standard £60 penalty for illegal parking or speeding.

Prof Nutt was told to resign after he criticised the reclassification of cannabis and said alcohol and cigarettes were more dangerous than ecstasy.

Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary, disregarded the committee's advice that cannabis should remain a Class C drug, and returned it to Class B last year. Prof Nutt then accused ministers of ignoring scientific evidence to distort the drugs debate.

He said yesterday that many ACMD members had been angered by the Government's position.

"They are talking about resignations and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them stepped down. Perhaps all of them will," he said.

"If people on our committee resign there is no other expertise – we are the only ones the Government have got in the country."

A new drugs Bill to ban substances including date rape drug GBL, and stimulant BZP, plus other synthetic cannabis-like substances, will be presented to Parliament tomorrow which is based on ACMD advice, said Prof Nutt.

"The Home Office does not have the expertise to draft such legislation. It is a pretty worrying time to be trying to develop laws on drugs if you have not got the experts to do it.

"Gordon Brown's government is the first in the ACMD's 37-year history to ignore our advice. Have we got worse scientists? No, in fact we are more rigorous than ever, which means there must be something else happening and it is a political decision."

On Mr Johnson's actions, the professor said: "It is a very bleak day for science and in many ways a worse day for politics."

One ACMD member, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "People are devastated. There have been a lot of emails going around discussing the next steps."

Another former member of the committee said: "I was utterly appalled to hear Prof Nutt had been forced out in this way. He is an extremely distinguished scientist and his removal has made the classification of drugs a political issue."

Francis Wilkinson, a former chief constable and prominent campaigner for drugs legalisation, predicted that Mr Johnson would have difficulty finding a respected scientist who was willing to take over from Prof Nutt.

"If you look at other people nationally they all share Prof Nutt's views and one would be hard-pushed to find someone who supports the way prohibition is currently organised," he said.

"This might be the first stage in a real change on drug policy because politicians will be obliged to take notice of what all the research and the experts tells them.

"I predict that the only people who could take over from Prof Nutt would be second-rate or time-servers, which would of course mean that the ACMD is less credible."

The Talking About Cannabis group, which campaigns against cannabis liberalisation and has opposed the ACMD's decisions on the drug under Prof Nutt, wrote to the Home Secretary yesterday congratulating him for taking a "firm, swift stance".

Former government chief scientific adviser Sir David King also said that Prof Nutt had gone too far in criticising ministers' decision-making, but added that the Government had "lacked courage" when faced with the science on the relative harm caused by different drugs.

The forcing out of Prof Nutt follows other embarrassing clashes between ministers and government advisers, including Chris Woodhead the former chief inspector of schools who resigned in 2000 because he was frustrated by policy at David Blunkett's education department.

Professor Colin Blakemore, the Oxford University neuroscientist, said yesterday that Labour had pledged to follow "evidence-based policy" when it came to power in 1997, following concerns that experts had been "muzzled" by the previous Tory administration during the BSE, or "mad cow disease", crisis.

"There seems to be a worrying retreat from that important commitment," Prof Blakemore said.

The row comes as new figures on fines handed down by the courts for drug offences show that financial penalties for crack and heroin possession have fallen sharply in the last 10 years.

The average fine for crack possession in 2007, the last year for which figures are available, was £38.33 or less than a quarter of its 1997 level, which was £180.

Over the same 10 year period, fines for possession of heroin have more than halved, to just £65.83. Fines for cocaine possession also fell, from £624.50 to £326.05 although those for offenders caught with ecstasy increased from £209.33 to £678.57.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman who obtained the data, said: "Heroin and crack cocaine destroy lives and fines smaller than a parking ticket are no deterrent."

The maximum penalty for possessing Class A drugs, such as heroin, crack cocaine, cocaine and ecstasy, is seven years in jail or an unlimited fine. However, in 2007, when police caught criminals with Class A drugs almost 25,000 times, nearly half of all offenders received a caution and were not taken to court.

Just 3.5 per cent of those found with the most dangerous drugs were sent to prison. Around one in five were fined, one in 10 were given an absolute or conditional discharge, and one in seven received a community penalty.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the courts. Crack cocaine, cocaine, heroin and ecstasy are illegal, and their maximum sentences for possession are a prison sentence."

[Chiral]

This guy is starting to become my hero for voicing honest, realistic opinions and figures...

SOURCE

Now Home Office drugs adviser wants to downgrade LSD from A to B

LSD, the powerful hallucinogenic drug made famous by The Beatles, should be downgraded from a Class A drug, according to the Government's drugs adviser.

The news has emerged after the Professor David Nutt was ordered to apologise by the Home Secretary for saying that taking ecstasy was no worse than riding a horse.

Prof Nutt is chairman of the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is set to recommend that ecstasy should be downgraded from A to B.

In a radio interview last year, months before he became chairman of the council, Prof Nutt disclosed that he also favoured downgrading LSD from A to B.

He said: "There are several drugs that are in class A and probably should not be there, like ecstasy and LSD. There are other drugs that should be up the scale.

"Ecstasy and LSD which tend to cause little dependence and relatively moderate degrees of personal damage are probably too highly classified."

LSD is ranked as a class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The maximum penalty for supplying the drug is life imprisonment.

Prof Nutt, who took over as chairman of the council last November, went on to call for a major overhaul of the drugs classification rules in Britain.

He said: "I think it is time to have a complete review of all the drug laws. And I would like to have that in the UK."

Prof Nutt said he was content that drugs like "heroin, crack, cocaine and metamphetamine pure" should remain as Class A drugs.

He told Radio New Zealand: "It is quite hard to move drugs out of classes. In the UK we have has these class system now since 1971.

"Only one drug has ever been moved down a class and a couple have moved up. Cannabis moved down and opiates moved up."

Prof Nutt said that if alcohol emerged as a substance in modern Britain it would be classified as an illegal Class B drug.

He said: "If alcohol was suddenly to emerge in society now and it was suddenly assessed as other drugs of abuse it would be rated as a B class drug and therefore not be made legal."

The Daily Telegraph disclosed last week how Prof Nutt had written in an academic journal that taking the drug was no more dangerous than an addiction to horse riding.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Jacqui Smith told MPs that his comments sent the wrong message to young people about the dangers of drugs.

She said: "I made clear to Prof Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs."

[Chiral]

This story is really exploding around the worlds media at the moment, all sorts of emotions and truths are the positive fallout it would seem.

SOURCE

My name is Lauren and I am a junkie. An addict to harmful substances, according to the Government’s former drugs tsar, Professor David Nutt.

He was sacked on Friday for claiming that cannabis and Ecstasy are less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes in a new ‘index of harm’ he compiled to warn the public of the relative dangers of various substances.

Thanks to this list I have gone from being a social drinker and smoker to a habitual user of the fifth and ninth most harmful drugs available in Britain.

According to Nutt, who was chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the nicotine I inhale and the Australian merlot I drink most evenings are more ‘potentially harmful’ than cannabis and Ecstasy. So, naturally, I was furious with his statements.

Furious, yes – because it’s taken this long for someone to have the guts to take the legal-illegal drug argument by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake.

Until now my unhealthy, yet completely legal, habits have been segregated from any debate concerning the relative harm caused by other, less readily available behaviour-altering substances.

Why? The legal habits most of us cling to in order to make modern life more bearable deserve to be scrutinised in the same way as addictions that are less socially palatable. Indeed, as so many of us drink so much, they deserve more rigorous re-examination.

Two memories came back to me as I read Nutt’s very sensible comments. The first was how I used to climb the stairs slowly to our family flat, when I was a school child, sniffing the air as I went. For ‘signs’.

If the pungent fumes of marijuana floated down from above, I would relax and trot up to the front door eager to see Mum and Dad. But if I could smell the sweated, bitter aroma of Carlsberg Special Brew in the air, I would linger, scared.

Because in my home, as in far too many others, the question wasn’t what was legal and what wasn’t, nor what was cool or what was not. It was this: laughing adults, stoned on illegal weed or violent, frightening ones, drunk on legal lager?

I’ve also been thinking about the ill-fated Zammo – or rather the child actor who played him in Grange Hill. Zammo fronted the ‘Just Say No’ campaign in the Eighties. Back then, children were told chilling tales about how drugs would lead to death, epileptic fits or, worse, bad dress sense and loose morals.

When the girls in the year above me resolutely failed to die, but were boasting about popping pills with abandon, all Government information on what risks were involved in getting high was dismissed with the single word: ‘Zammo’.

Research in recent years has analysed the link between the harmful effects of drugs relative to their current classification.

Alcohol, solvents and tobacco (all unclassified drugs) have repeatedly been rated as more dangerous than Ecstasy, and LSD (class A drugs). If the current ABC system is retained, alcohol would – and should – be rated a class A drug and tobacco class B.

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London, has said Nutt’s controversial briefing paper gave an insight into what drugs policy might look like – if it was based on research evidence rather than political or moral positioning.

Then, Home Secretary, Alan Johnson did what Home Secretaries do when faced with a tricky debate on the ‘war on drugs’. He shot the messenger.

We, the ‘social’ drinkers and part-time puffers of Britain, have another reprieve from censure, thanks to Mr Johnson.

Our legal, taxable poisons will not be classified by the Government in the same way as toxins from which they cannot raise much-needed revenue.

And the debate on how our society relies on substance abuse and what radical measures need to be taken to lessen their stranglehold on us suffers another major setback.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

[alkatrope]

Interesting sequence of events going on