The UK Home Secretary has apparently ignored the advice (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/12/ecstasy-jacqui-smith-drug-laws) of her Expert Committee of Psychopharmacologists and others who advocated down-grading the semi-ubiquitous clubber drug Ecstasy from Class A (with Heroin and Crack cocaine) to Class B (placing it with Amphetamines and Cannabis). The Committee Chair (Professor Nutt) was apparently attacked for claiming in a scientific paper that, on the basis of deaths caused per annum, horse riding is more dangerous than ingesting Ecstasy. Attacking him is a bit mean as he presumably only got to chair the committee on the basis of studying and publishing on psychoactive drugs and was presumably simply attempting to demonstrate what a poor understanding of risk prevails in our society (I don't think he was advocating putting horses in Class A!). This is an illustration of, when it comes down to votes and bad media headlines, Science is always trumped by Politics. Some people have gone so far as to claim that such decisions damage our ability to get important messages out to young people. If they don't believe this message, they may ignore all health-related messages from the 'same' source.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
The Agony and the Ecstasy
The UK Home Secretary has apparently ignored the advice (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/12/ecstasy-jacqui-smith-drug-laws) of her Expert Committee of Psychopharmacologists and others who advocated down-grading the semi-ubiquitous clubber drug Ecstasy from Class A (with Heroin and Crack cocaine) to Class B (placing it with Amphetamines and Cannabis). The Committee Chair (Professor Nutt) was apparently attacked for claiming in a scientific paper that, on the basis of deaths caused per annum, horse riding is more dangerous than ingesting Ecstasy. Attacking him is a bit mean as he presumably only got to chair the committee on the basis of studying and publishing on psychoactive drugs and was presumably simply attempting to demonstrate what a poor understanding of risk prevails in our society (I don't think he was advocating putting horses in Class A!). This is an illustration of, when it comes down to votes and bad media headlines, Science is always trumped by Politics. Some people have gone so far as to claim that such decisions damage our ability to get important messages out to young people. If they don't believe this message, they may ignore all health-related messages from the 'same' source.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sandwich Island Saga 62. Wind turbines and birds
Research in Norway has revealed that painting one blade of a wind turbine black, greatly reduces the number of bird collisions. ...
-
I n the UK and US, a pparently popular and successful vegan/vegetarian restaurants are reportedly closing or adding meat to their menus ( ...
-
Early ripening fruit may seem convenient but some folk think it confirms environmental stress. There's also a possibility th...
%20mating%20NWCW.jpg)
2 comments:
Others, such as our very own Andy Parrot, would disagree http://www.addictiontoday.org/addictiontoday/2008/11/an-open-letter-to-acmd.html
He would and, of course, acute death is not the only criterion by which one judges potential 'harm'. Having said that (and accepting that there is a good deal of debate out there) I don't think the decision was driven by any scientific evidence base. Knowledge-led economy?
Post a Comment