Filed under: Politics | Tags: Alan Johnson, Cannabis, Drug classification, Drug Legislation, Drugs, Ecstasy, Home Office, Jacqui Smith, Politics, Professor David Nutt, The Lancet
Last week the UK’s chief drugs adviser, Professor David Nutt, was sacked by the Home Secretary Alan Johnson. One of the country’s leading experts on drugs Professor Nutt first joined the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) over ten years ago, yet it was over the past 12 months that his relationship with the government had become strained.
It began with an article that Professor Nutt wrote in a scientific journal headlined “Equasy, an over-looked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms.” It was this paper that caused a storm, whereby sensational coverage blasted the Professor for suggesting that ecstasy and other illegal drug use could actually be safer than riding a horse. Nutt explaining his article said: “This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others, such as drug use.”
After his comments, Jacqui Smith asked him to apologise. However the Professor continued his defiance in the summer producing a chart of the harm of illegal drugs, placing legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco above LSD, ecstasy and cannabis and suggesting that a barrier was forming between legal and illegal substances with regards to classification. Nutt also suggested that the government’s policy of erring on the side of caution could cause more harm which was the final straw, and when the Professor was relieved of his duties.
Following the Professor’s sacking, one of his colleagues resigned in protest, Dr. Les King; a drugs adviser with another adviser apparently soon to follow. With two charts, one from the Lancet and David Nutt’s own showing that classification is out of touch with harm caused by particular substances supporters of a tougher stance on drugs say that it is dependent on society, and things aren’t as simple as classifying according to harm and that Nutt overstepped his duty. However, we have to realise that not everyone who do drugs are bad people, or even not well off – smoking Marijuana certainly didn’t stop David Cameron successfully graduating from Oxford and being the favourite to be the next Prime Minister and it certainly didn’t stop Barack Obama becoming President; however, what would be of these people if they were affected by draconian government policy of 5 years in prison (with an unlimited fine) for possession?
Furthermore, the government showed how ridiculous their drug policy is when they rushed through the ban of Psilocybin mushrooms at the end of the 2001-beginning of the 2005 government. Psilocybin mushrooms date back to a predicted million years and grow globally, and even before 2005 were legal in the United Kingdom and were sold in hundreds of shops and online and suddenly became a Class A drug in the same league as Heroin and Crystal Meth. It should be noted that nobody has ever died from the toxicity or physical effects of mushroom use, unlike the millions of people who do as a result of smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol. As well as this, the benefits of Psilocybin mushrooms are actually being investigated to help with a numerous amount of mental health conditions such as OCD and cluster headaches.
The government should start listening to scientists and experts instead of pandering to tabloid editors.
Drug harm chart from the Lancet medical journal, ordered in terms of harm and colour coded to how they're classified (Before Cannabis was Class B).
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Excellent argument. They cannot just ignore facts because it pleases them. Think how many politicians have indulged in drug abuse or sex scandels. They could cut crime by a gargantuan amount if they de-classified some of these drugs.
How can those mushrooms, which no one has died from, be in the same league as something as detremental and destructive as heroin and crack.
Common sense and working with scientific advisers would improve the situation. Not stronger laws and harsher sentences.
Comment by rwaldron November 4, 2009 @ 5:09 pmIt is worrying how influential the media can be in steering a debate. I am shocked an appalled by how Professor David Nutt has been treated from telling the facts. It leaves me questioning if we can really tryst what politicians say?
Comment by rohannaphillips November 6, 2009 @ 10:19 amPersonally, I don’t understand why Nutt has been so villified. Surely he is just expressing the other side of the argument, which is a side that has scientific proof behind it. It just demonstrates exactly what Rohanna siad, can we really trust what politicians say? If they are exaggerating the effects of drugs, what else are they lying to us about?
Comment by ashpercival December 2, 2009 @ 12:20 pm