91: I looked up your Nutt guy and then, I was shocked.
Quote:
Professor Nutt worked as an advisor to the Ministry of Defence, Department of Health and the Home Office.[5]
He served on the Committee on Safety of Medicines where he participated in an enquiry into the use of SSRI anti-depressants in 2003. His participation was criticised as, owing to his financial interest in GlaxoSmithKline, he had to withdraw from discussions of the drug Seroxat.[13] In January 2008 he was appointed as the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), having previously been Chair of the Technical Committee of the ACMD for seven years.[1]
A figure using data from a paper in the journal, The Lancet ranking the relative negative effects of different drugs. The paper was written by Nutt and included in his controversial lecture[7][14]
As ACMD chairman Nutt repeatedly clashed with government ministers over issues of drug harm and classification. In January 2009 he published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology an editorial ('Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms') in which the risks associated with horse riding (1 serious adverse event every ~350 exposures) were compared to those of taking ecstasy (1 serious adverse event every ~10,000 exposures).[15] In February 2009 he was criticised by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for stating in the paper that the drug ecstasy – a class A drug along with heroin and cocaine – was statistically no more dangerous than an addiction to horse-riding.[16] Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Nutt said that the point was "to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life". Jacqui Smith claimed to be "surprised and profoundly disappointed" by the remarks, and added: "I'm sure most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug taking". She also insisted that he apologise for his comments, and asked him to apologise also to 'the families of the victims of ecstasy'.[17]
The issue of the mismatch between lawmakers' classification of recreational drugs, in particular that of cannabis, and scientific measures of their harmfulness surfaced again in October 2009, after the publication of a pamphlet[18] containing a lecture Nutt had given to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London in July 2009. In this, Nutt repeated his familiar view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause, and presented an analysis in which nine 'parameters of harm' (grouped as 'physical harm', 'dependence', 'and 'social harms') revealed alcohol and tobacco to be more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. In this ranking, alcohol came fifth behind heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone, and tobacco ranked ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, he said. In this classification, alcohol and tobacco appeared as Class B drugs, and cannabis was placed at the top of Class C. Nutt also argued that taking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness.[19] Nutt objected to the recent re-upgrading (after 5 years) of cannabis from a Class C drug back to a Class B drug (and thus again on a par with amphetamines), considering it politically motivated rather than scientifically justified.[14] In October 2009 Nutt had a public disagreement with psychiatrist Robin Murray in the pages of The Guardian about the dangers of cannabis in triggering psychosis.[12]
You have to understand that in Nutt's view, neither Cannabis nor alcohol or tobacco are soft drugs. They are all pretty tough. So, basically he agrees.
Regarding the Cannabis study:
Quote:
Professor Nutt states that "there has been a lot of commentary and some research as to whether cannabis is associated with schizophrenia." It is crystal clear that people with schizophrenia use more cannabis than the general population; there is no dispute about this. The question is whether the use of cannabis contributes to the onset of psychosis including schizophrenia in a causal manner. Here the evidence, although not yet conclusive, has been mounting steadily over the past six years.
Professor Nutt contrasts a 2.6 fold increase in risk of psychosis carried by using cannabis with a twentyfold increase in risk of lung cancer if one smokes cigarettes.
Edit: Ah ok, just read the next posts.
Regarding Murray:
Quote:
Personally, I care little whether cannabis is classified as a class B or class C drug. Fourteen year olds starting daily cannabis use do not agonise over its exact classification; many do not even think it is a drug and few have any knowledge of its hazards. By comparison, most adults in the UK drink alcohol in moderation, but do so in the knowledge that drinking a bottle of vodka a day is likely to be injurious to health, and few are in favour of daily drinking from age 14 years.
Both Professor Nutt and I agree that what we need is a major educational campaign to inform the public about the risks associated with heavy use of cannabis particularly in early adolescence. Fortunately, there has been some progress in public understanding and, as a consequence, use of cannabis has been falling for the past five years.
Even Murray agrees, the issue is not about what drugs are legal or not, but what is needed is education.
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Last edited by Vexcalibur on 22 Jan 2011, 11:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
22 Jan 2011, 3:52 pm
). I imagine touring pot-growing regions might involve setting off trip wire flares and getting shot at by rednecks in the middle of the forest
