http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8334774.stm I'm sorry, but I'm outraged by this. Apparently, now, scientific fact is 'controversial'. What is it going to take for the the government to acknowledge the fact that alcohol and tobacco, both leading causes of death and disease, are more damaging, statistically, than "hard drugs"? I can understand the capitalist undertones behind maintaining the alcohol and tobacco markets but the classification of other drugs has now just become a political vantage point. I'm totally liberal when it comes to drugs and I think people should be allowed to do what the hell they want, as long as they don't mess around with other people's lives. This is a huge step in the wrong direction and gives validity to the ridiculous parade of drug classification in general.
LOL at the title, I find it stupid tbh, does this mean that they now have to find a new advisor that will blindly follow what the government want instead off proper facts! Even the most stupid of people, can see that statistically tobacco and alcohol cause more problems than drugs. I only live in a small town but the aftermath that can be caused after a busy night due to drink is astonishing. Lets face it if the government wasnt getting massive amounts of tax from tobacco and alcohol products they'd be banned aswell!
This is ridiculous, I thought the point of an advisor was that they new more about the subject than the politicians, so to sack one because you disagree with their opinions is outrageous. People should be able to do whatever the hell they like with their bodies anyway, decriminalising some drugs would reduce crime and allow regulation of the purity and strength of the drugs, so it would be much safer. Slightly off topic, but, if alcohol was discovered today, it'd probably be a Class A drug. My step-mother used to be a social-worker, working with those that have drug/alcohol problems, and she'll always tell you that alcohol is one of if not the most damaging drugs. You only have to look at a drunk person to see how strong alcohol is. i mean, alcohol stole half of last night from my memory, and left me kneeling on a wet toilet floor. It's not big and it's not clever, but it is socially acceptable to a degree, but admit to drug use and suddenly you're a bad person and stigmatised? Something has to change.
Actually the only reason Alcohol is more damaging than any other drugs is because it's legal so lots of people consume it and people consume large amounts of it. It's extremely hard to overdose on Alcohol and generally only chronic abusers will see long term damage done to their body. It's certainly not particulary dangerous to consume infrequently. I am prepared to be proven wrong though. Again more usage and the fact that people are able to consume much more of it. I don't really get the argument that "Cannabis should be kept more legal because Alcohol and Tobacco should be more illegal". But I do agree that the government is being rather stupid.
It's extremely hard to overdose on traditional alcohol - i.e. a pint because so much would have to be consumed so quickly. Illegal drugs are usually more concentrated than that. I could kill myself if you gave me a syringe and some pure alcohol.
Forgive me, but I dont quite understand WHY we have this ranking system for the illegitness of drugs. Drugs are illegal. Some drugs arent more illegal than others, sure some may be more dangerous, but they are still illegal. There should not be any 'classes' for drugs, there should be a straight sentence for anyone found possessing them, dealing them or using them. It's bizarre that its somehow allowed to take class C drugs, even though they are technically illegal, but step near some E and its big ****.
I have spent quite alot of time this weeknd debating this issue with various members of my family. I have been fighting the science corner as I heaviy side with pofessor Nutt, Maybe not because I belive he is 100% correct in what he said, but because he stood up against the current government policy and he was sacked for it. His job was an unpaid seat on an advisory board and professor Nutt and his collegues do this job day in day out from the side of science and FACT! and as soon as the current policy they no longer care about the facts but more about not losing face. What he said may have been true about the dangers of cannabis compared to that of alcohol I am yet to see the evidence to support this but this is no way to treat a scientific mind who has given his time up for free and got very little for it.
Prof. Nutt was not sacked for his opinion, nor his advice to the government. He was sacked because he publicly criticised the government's decision even though he is the government's advisor. Alan Johnson considers those two positions incompatible. To an extent he has a point. A wrong one, but a point nonetheless. I think that Alan Johnson is wrong (on many levels, including as a concept); sacking an advisor for publicly disagreeing with you is basically a violation of free speech. If you, in Johnson's words, are "confident" enough to make political decisions against scientific advice then you should be confident enough to withstand scientific criticism of such decisions. Furthermore if you decide to ignore scientific advice you better have a really good rationale for that decision. Johnson has not given any. In fact, his decision is utterly disasterous. Harmless casual pot smokers now risk being criminalised with all the far-reaching negative consequences that brings for their future career and employment (and it is not as if we have an unemployment problem, is it?) and risk being sent to already overcrowded prisons. Career criminals are having to be released early as it is --so they can make room for, say, a promising University student who got caught smoking some pot? This decision making is pandering to the Daily Mail reader in a desperate attempt to keep the votes. What is worse, it will probably work.
This. If you are going to work for the devil, you have to play by his rules. Imagine what the poor fools in the diplomatic corp have to live with.
Statistically speaking that may be correct, but that doesn't make it good scientific advice from Nutt! That's called twisting statistics and using them to make a misleading statement - it's comparing the physical dangers of horse riding to the mental effects of ecstasy Only in one of these two situations is your brain functioning anywhere near normally! That's also the same sort of difference between smoking a cigarette or a joint - only one can get you high. Cigarettes may be more physically damaging than a joint, but that's different from the risks of mental effects of cannabis. Comparing alcohol and cannabis is appropriate however i think, as they both can have major effects on a person's behavior, especially when excessive amounts have been taken.
This is why I want to move to somewhere like Canada, everyone digs at the US for being a retarded mess but we're just the same over here. I do, consistency, if alchohol and tobacco are legal, so should other drugs. It's freedom of choice, why can't we choose to legally consume a drug that is both less addictive and less toxic than alcohol? Doesn't make a shred of sense to me. Not true, I get a head rush if I smoke a cigarette that lasts for a while, the only reason most people don't get it is because they've built up a tolerance to the effects of nicotine.
I think that's what it comes down to really. Tobacco and alcohol are both controlled substances, controlled for content and strength. Who knows what the regular pot you're getting is laced with.
I think that it is important to decide first and foremost what is the harmful effect of drugs. Mood/mind alteration? Cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine all do that. Where's the harm? The only harm is in the impairment of judgement: some people do stupid and harmful things when they are drunk or stoned; A&E is full of them on the weekends. Then again, many manage not to. Addiction? Again, alcohol can be addictive; cigs definitely are. Addiction is harmful so on those grounds you could ban drugs --but you'd have to ban tobacco and alcohol. Physical harmful consequences? Alcohol and tobacco top the list on this one. Cannabis, which has recently been selectively bred to be more potent causes long-term brain damage. On Ecstacy the jury is still out. Most drugs, such as heroine and cocaine are physically speaking actually not that harmful in their pharmaceutically pure form. It is the crap that illegal drugs get cut with and the toxic impurities that can sneak in during sloppy manufacture in someone's makeshift lab that do the damage (as does the addictive lifestyle itself). Drugs are not about the substance. They are about behaviour. It is telling that in Portugal all drugs have been decriminalised and the rates of drugs crime and drug addiction have actually gone down. Perhaps Alan Johnson should have consulted a few psychologists. But would he listen? Would he heck. He is addicted to power, to winning votes, to the narcissistic belief that he has some special wisdom or insight into the human condition that makes him suitable to govern this country. He is on a damaging mind-altering drug all of his own.
How long is a while? 30 seconds? Compare that to if you smoked a joint, took an e, or some heroin, cocaine, etc... cigarette's are not in the same class are they? I'm thinking that the government is considering harmful to mean which substance will harm the nation the most, in terms of safety & it's economy. Cigarettes don't cause any safety issues, [SIZE="-4"](besides maybe a couple of accidental fires)[/SIZE] and they don't cost the police any time, so they aren't costing the nation money there. Alcohol & the bad other drugs that have been mentioned, cause all sorts of problems for the police to chase up. Violence, theft, murder, etc. Alcohol does all this without even being illegal, i'd hate to see what would happen if we banned it Cigarettes deserve to be banned for how bad they are for our health, but again, they are not in the same class as the other drugs we're talking about when it comes to the resulting behaviour and the effect on public safety. I agree that we could argue that they deserve to be banned for the physically harmful effects, but you know that's probably just going to create a new illegal trade, and for something that doesn't even cause changes in behaviour anywhere near as much as the big bad other drugs. I'm not saying cigarettes are good, it's just that as harsh as this sounds, they are the lesser evil drug when it comes to the safety in a nation, among other things. I don't believe banning anything is the answer, decriminalizing sounds like it has worked well, but also and more importantly increased education & awareness in schools and through the media of all drugs would be a significant improvement - i assume Portugal has spent good money on this? I don't know how much money the nation is spending on health care when it comes to all these drugs mentioned here... maybe cigarettes would be the biggest expense for the government in this case? But enough to outweigh all the expense of the resulting crime from alcohol & other drugs? I doubt it. Maybe the government cares a little more about money than public safety, maybe not, but i rank safety higher and people smoking cigarettes are the lesser evil when it comes to public safety.
