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.
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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?
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