“I wanna be free, to do what I wanna do, I wanna get loaded and have a good time!"
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According to Professor David Nutt, we should all be allowed to do exactly that. It's hard to believe that Professor Nutt and Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie could have anything in common, but a report by the ex-chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, suggests that we should all be free to take as much LSD and Ecstasy as we like, well, that's Bobby's interpretation. According to the report they are seven times less dangerous than alcohol and should be re-categorised as Class D.
Professor Nutt founded the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs after being sacked by Labour’s Alan Johnson, the home secretary at the time. Johnson sacked Professor David Nutt as senior drugs adviser after the scientist criticised the government's decision to toughen the law on cannabis following a number of scare stories regarding the psychotic effects of the new stronger strains of the drug and dared to point out that three times more people die riding horses each year than due to the effects of ecstasy (an activity pursued by a far larger numbers).
Professor Nutt is not advocating that we swap the kids’ sweets for some LSD but he is trying to provoke a rational debate about the unnecessary criminalisation of drugs. Poly Toynbee argues in ‘The Verdict’ that Labour’s reclassification of cannabis was a success. “Instead of arresting 97,000 people a year for possession, police were now required to simply confiscate cannabis issue on- the-spot warnings.’ Between 2004 and 2008 cannabis use continued to fall, overall illicit drug use fell to its lowest level since the 1980s and 180,000 hours of police time were saved.
Despite this short period of success, Johnson caved in to the backlash by the moral minority and went against the recommendations of his scientific advisers by reclassifying cannabis back to Class B. The unfortunately named, Nutt, accused ministers of "devaluing and distorting" the scientific evidence over illicit drugs by their decision and was sacked for 'damaging efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs'.
What is the clear message? On one hand we have Professor Nutt and his learned colleagues, six of whom have resigned from the government’s committee, reaching well-researched conclusions while on the other hand we have politicians banning yet another drug, mephedrone, commonly known as meow meow, because of a press campaign in the ‘meow made me rip off my own scrotum’ school of journalism. The clear message is that the wisdom of the mob and not scientific evidence inform our public policy.
Drugs can be dangerous. Yes, but our drugs’ policy is a failure. We fill our jails with young people who learn to become hardened-criminals, drug use continues to grow while only 1% of total supply is intercepted by the police or customs. Drugs are a problem but not as big a problem as government policy continually being decided, not by the most informed, but by those who shout the loudest fuelled only by moral outrage… oh, and possibly a large dry sherry?
so did they manage to restore your scrotum? btw is drug use going down(as in middle of excellent article) or up (as in last paragraph?) or do these stats refer only to the author's own use?
ReplyDeleteAt last I have figured out how to comment.
ReplyDeleteI think the downward trend is historical. The information comes from Toynbee and, like my article, is a little unclear. I have taken it to mean that that drug use declined during the period of reclassification 2004-2008. The longer historical trend is, of course, upwards.
I agree that the hard book addiction should be taken more seriously. Is there any more pitiful sight than a man putting up yet another set of shelves?
Sorry, I seem to have deleted a couple of comments by mistake. Thanks for posting. I liked the soft and hard book line.
ReplyDeleteThis country needs a good (anfd by trhat I mean not driven by Daily Mail style comments) debate about drugs. When a significant poertion of the population take drugs and the country is suffering its worst recession for donkeys years surely legalising some drugs would help. This would raise tax, reduce police time on chasing people who aren't actually doing any harm to anyone and mean that a large portion of the drug taking population would lno longer need to come into contact with dealers, a lot of whom will happily sell stronger and stronger drugs.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kitey, whilst I don't think all policy is purely a matter of crunching numbers and coming up with an answer, at the moment there really isn't much of a debate so hurrah to the Prof for trying to get a considered, alternative view out there. The values of this country have consistently been strengthened by legislation that has confirmed individual's rights from slavery, the vote for women, racial equality, to gay rights. All of these issues began, seemingly, as political no hopers.
ReplyDeletestats in recent RCGPJ - drug use in young going down & in middle age going up, no figures for over 60s though arrest rates up according to police!That's what we need the police to be doing - banging up pensioner pot heads. This seems to reflect demographic change rather than classification or any other "action on drugs"
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