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

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thisthis has been happening in the uk at the moment. our leading expert on drugs came out & said that he didn't agree with the fact that cannabis is classified as dangerous as speed & only just less than ecstasy whilst alcohol & tobacco are perfectly legal. based on years worth of studies & built up evidence he said that cannabis & ecstasy are no where near as harmful as alcohol & tobacco causing the government to try & 'please' people by sacking him immediately, based on the fact that he was not supporting the governments policies.

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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But seriously, what Professor Nutt said wasn't his "opinion", it was scientific fact which he found as a result of his study.

If he has proved that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, there should be an overhaul in classification.

Reclassifying cannabis might alienate older voters and non-cannabis users.

By arguing that it is only his job to "advise" and not "decide" is an admission that drug classification is not proportional to how damaging drugs are.

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The only semi-reasonable pro-sacking-Professor-Nutt argument I've heard is the one that re-classifying cannabis would not send out the right message about drugs and may lead to increased drug used, which would lead to more cases of psychosis etc as general usage increases.

But seriously, what Professor Nutt said wasn't his "opinion", it was scientific fact which he found as a result of his study.

If he has proved that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, there should be an overhaul in classification.

Reclassifying cannabis might alienate older voters and non-cannabis users.

By arguing that it is only his job to "advise" and not "decide" is an admission that drug classification is not proportional to how damaging drugs are.

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Which is true. The classification seems to have no direct link to the mountains of evidence suggesting the different effects of certain drugs. It does need to be completely overhauled, & the labour government is doomed now anyway so why not go out & do something worth while on the way? They're tiptoeing around the issue so as not to alienate the few voters that they have, but now they have sacked one of the leading scientists studying the effects on different drugs meaning that now, we have no real expert. Leaving us in an even poorer situation than before.

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you'd be a rubbish squirrel

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Quote: from Spuddlesworth at 5:43 pm on Nov. 4, 2009

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The only semi-reasonable pro-sacking-Professor-Nutt argument I've heard is the one that re-classifying cannabis would not send out the right message about drugs and may lead to increased drug used, which would lead to more cases of psychosis etc as general usage increases.  

 But seriously, what Professor Nutt said wasn't his "opinion", it was scientific fact which he found as a result of his study.  

 If he has proved that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, there should be an overhaul in classification.  

 Reclassifying cannabis might alienate older voters and non-cannabis users.  

 By arguing that it is only his job to "advise" and not "decide" is an admission that drug classification is not proportional to how damaging drugs are.

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Which is true. The classification seems to have no direct link to the mountains of evidence suggesting the different effects of certain drugs. It does need to be completely overhauled, & the labour government is doomed now anyway so why not go out & do something worth while on the way? They're tiptoeing around the issue so as not to alienate the few voters that they have, but now they have sacked one of the leading scientists studying the effects on different drugs meaning that now, we have no real expert. Leaving us in an even poorer situation than before.

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When Galileo proved that Earth was not the centre of the Universe, he was branded a heretic.

Glad to see we've made progress in the last 400 years.