but it is not his job to support their policies, Professor Nutt has no reason to side with them or produce propaganda for them, he is there to present them with the evidence & hope (although they mostly don't) listen too him.

in fact what he said is completely true. barely anyone dies of ecstasy abuse (he said it was as dangerous as horse riding as the statistics are similar) & yet millions of money is spent on the effect of alcohol & tobacco abuse, just in the UK alone. but the fact is that the government makes a hell of a lot of money off it so they choose to brush that under the carpet & pour money into campaigns on responsible drinking. there is no such scheme to promote responsible drug experimentation, in fact the government choose to ignore the problem almost completely, basing their classification system on nothing more (seemingly) than social perceptions on drug use.

instead of ignoring the problem so as to not cause any controversy maybe they need to sit down & realize how much drugs impact of the lives of young people (& any drug user for that matter) & how they can best equip them with dealing with the presence of drugs. instead of putting all their energy into arguing over a relatively minor (although widely used) 'addiction' such as cannabis, shouldn't we be concentrating on teaching young kids that being addicted to things like ketamine (only a class C drug when i personally know more people destroyed my ketamine than any other class b or c drug), heroin, cocaine & crystal meth are MUCH more harmful to themselves, society & the people around them.

it's hard for a government to admit that drug taking does go on & that there's nothing they can do to stop that. but they should be concerned about the amount of people (young especially) who go out into the world & are taken advantage of without knowing enough to protect themselves.

What do you think?

*herehere is the classification as it stands in the uk

(& apologies for the lack of capitals i wrote it on my blog first, it's an aesthetic thing)

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you'd be a rubbish squirrel

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yet millions of money is spent on the effect of alcohol & tobacco abuse, just in the UK alone. but the fact is that the government makes a hell of a lot of money off it so they choose to brush that under the carpet & pour money into campaigns on responsible drinking.

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It's not socially possible to outlaw alcohol or tobacco. Can you imagine the furore it'd cause? Hell, alcohol's one of the only things I'd march on parliament to keep, and I try my hardest not to get involved in politics much more than mild debate. There's no real justification to legalise drugs, the only reason that alcohol and tobacco are still legal is because any government that outlaws then would be overthrown.

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When they leave me, they're all smiles.
When they leave you, they're in tears.

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Quote: from neonPEG at 5:33 pm on Nov. 4, 2009

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yet millions of money is spent on the effect of alcohol & tobacco abuse, just in the UK alone. but the fact is that the government makes a hell of a lot of money off it so they choose to brush that under the carpet & pour money into campaigns on responsible drinking.

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It's not socially possible to outlaw alcohol or tobacco.

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There's no real justification to legalise drugs

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Honestly, this all reminds me of Foucault's power-knowledge; the UK's government (and my own) simply refuses to accept scientific data that disagrees with those in power. But don't take my word for it:

"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."
-Home Secretary Alan Johnson in his letter dismissing Professor David Nutt for daring to present scientific data that disagreed with government policy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8334774.stm

Fucking disgraceful.

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"Hey, that's not very nice, Mayor--
just because a person's gay doesn't mean he's a fag!"
-Stan