Professor David Nutt, the now ex-chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), was sacked by Alan Johnson last week. Did Alan Johnson invite Professor Nutt to a meeting? Did he telephone him to discuss his concerns? No. He emailed him and told him he was sacked. The Telegraph reported Professor Nutt had received a letter from Mr Johnson, but on Sky News this morning, Alan Johnson admitted he had not written a letter, but emailed the professor.
David Nutt was not paid for his advisory position so it is all the more insulting that he was not treated with even the slightest courtesy. How do we expect our young to respect others when the Home Office minister behaves so badly?
I use drugs - alcohol and tobacco, but I've never used any others and have never been tempted. Once I saw a pal on an LSD trip and it wasn't a pleasant sight. That may have had something to do with my decision.
The present science involving cannabis and ecstasy is not acceptable to the Westminster government. It's just not what they want to hear. For 10 years the UK has had the same drugs policy and time hasn't made the policy any less superficial. Despite the knowledge and good sense of the people working with drug abusers and despite millions of pounds being ploughed into mainly locally managed anti-drug campaigns, drug use hasn't reduced to any great extent. By all accounts it seems more people are using party drugs nowadays.
Professor Nutt wasn't advocating a free for all legalised drugs policy but he wanted to scrap the present system of drugs classification. New laboratory created drugs have emerged during the last decade and their effects on behaviour and health need to be compared with other recreational drugs.
Before establishing a new classification register, public opinion must be informed by scientific findings as well as personal experience of the social disruption caused by legal and illegal drugs. It's time comparisons were made between the costs of different treatments for alcohol, tobacco, hard drug and soft drug users.
Will our politicians accept this has to happen and we need to update? No. They're too worried changing the present policy would lose them votes so it will stay as the inadequate piece of legislation it is.
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I will be honest here and relate to this.
After I lost a lovely lady to cancer I had terrible problems sleeping, I still have.
I was prescribed a drug for innsomania otherwise I would not have been capable of holding down a job.
...and I have a position that entails heavy responsibilies with safety issues at work.
Erm... ensuring my work colleagues are safe, amongst other things.
I was only meant to be on that prescribed drug for four weeks.
Eight weeks ago and six years later I began to have quite serious side effects and when I looked up this supposedly 'helpfull' drug, I was shocked about the latest research has revealed about it.
It is highly addictive for one thing and it is in the top ten preferences mixed with alcohol for addicts !!!
I promptly went cold turkey despite medical advice to be prescribed an other drug. A substitute, which after looking it up was equally horrific.
I am now off work at the moment until I've got this shite completely out of my system. It's not been easy these past weeks
Drugs is it? Aye, tell me about it.
The most reliable supply of good quality inexpensive classified drugs are to be found in our local prison. In the meantime shops are selling products that include an antibacterial with a real risk of anaphylaxis, and our family doctor has installed air fresheners that use nanotechnology allergens some of which have a cyanide base.
I am also a big fan of alcohol and tobacco. Happily I didn't particularly like the illegal drugs I tried in my youth (so I'm never tempted), and there are some like heroin or LSD or Ecstasy that I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole anyway.
But each to his own. I fail to see how the War On Drugs has been anything other than a complete and utter failure. Let's bite the bullet and legalise, regulate, tax and educate, just like for booze and fags.
I'm with Mark on this one.
Except that I have taken lots of drugs and had a thoroughly good time..
I liked Bill Hicks warning: be aware, not all drugs are good. Some are great!
Wisnaeme, don't you be feel guilty about taking a prescribed drug and then years later having serious problems.
Back in the 60s doctors (the biggest drug pushes in the world) prescribed the likes of valium, ativan, mogodon to people (mainly women) who had emotional problems of any kind.
Some took these drugs for 20+ years.
The reliable information I have is that such dope, taken daily, ceases to do its job after varying periods of time, because the body gets immune to it.
Cold turkey from sleeping pills isn't easy I shouldn't think. I remember years ago a neighbour had decided to come off some sleeping pill (don't remember the name) and she was given a four or six week course of the medication - each week it dropped down from 10mg to 5 to 2 to 1 I think.
No it's not easy in the least but think of the thousands who are on methedone and other drugs but have no intention of clearing their system.
Good luck, I know you'll be fine shortly.
Demetrius, I know you're not joking, but I wish you were.
Anything that smells 'clinical' is how my doctor's receptionist describes the aroma in the surgery. She says it makes people feel secure when they smell pleasant clinical odours.
I said they'd be a lot cheaper just having a bowl of diluted bleach somewhere out of the reach of the public.
Mark, various governments have pussyfooted around the drugs issue and now we have a well established drug pushing culture.
I'm told that even out here in the sticks any drug could be bought very easily and without much effort to find the supplier.
Dick, why doesn't that surprise me? :)
I'm quite sure you support the prof who has again been on Sky talking sense. I support the man too.
Bill Hicks, one of my brother's heroes.
SR, I fear that you are confusing me with a much better man - DP's a pal of mine. Quite right on the rest though..
Just call me paranoid but - the drugs policy in most western countries is driven by the US's "War on Drugs". This ensures government monopolies on the distribution and profits that can then be used to fund "Black Ops".
Ooops sorry BTS, my mistake. Now why did Dick's name spring to my mind when I read your post? :)
None of us is better than the other, just some are more outspoken. :)
How right you are scunnert but trying to follow the evidence would take one person a lifetime. Governments have it all tied up in so many areas that it's a nightmare to even find the beginnings.
Can someone explain to me how a government advisor can be non political ?
I mean every single thing they say will be seen as coming from "a government advisor" or worse a "top government advisor".
How the heck , under these circumstances not "cross the line into politics" ?
Can we sack Alan Johnson for failing to "cross the line into Science" ?
As some of you know, I've been in a very bad place this year, at one time on three sets of meds, but hey-they actually worked! I'm going back to work in a couple of weeks so I won't be blogging quite so much anymore.I'd like to thank everyone for the encouragement, especially subrosa XXX
google ate half my comment.
should read : How the heck, under these circumstances, can government advisors not "cross the line into politics" ?
"Before establishing a new classification register, public opinion must be informed by scientific findings"
If the science we have been fed in the last 10 years was remotely independent and unbiased, I could agree with you. Unfortunately, it hasn't been, so regretfully I can't (though only on semantics).
What is needed is an entirely non-political, or issue-led, scientific panel to give proper statistics. What we currently have is a mish-mash of state-funded vested interests spewing out cherry-picked, manipulated nonsense to the whims of whichever administration is in charge at the time (or is it just Labour?).
"Ooops sorry BTS, my mistake. Now why did Dick's name spring to my mind when I read your post?"
You're obsessed, woman. And stop sending me the daily dozen perfumed letters ... Mrs P is starting to get suspicious. ;-)
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Good luck Conan, all my very best.
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Great point Sandy. Adam Boulton posed a question along these lines to Alan Johnson this morning but it wasn't answered. Pity Adam didn't push it.
That's great news Conan, I'm just delighted. I know you were unsure of the medication for a while but I'm so pleased to hear that you're fit enough to return to work. (Don't worry retirement's not that far off!)
I do hope you'll do at least one Hootsmon Headlines a week and I thank you for your compliment, but I was only one of many of us who wished you a speedy recovery.
Certainly I'll miss your superb satire on a regular basis and also your clever comments which, at times, reduce my anger to a smile. xxx
That bit appeared in your first comment Sandy. Mind you, it's worth repeating.
There's the crunch though Dick - how do we acquire a non-political panel? David Tutt and some of his group were perhaps the least political but as soon as he's stepped out of line he's decryed by politicians.
There are so many agencies involved in the drugs issue but none are going to put their heads above the parapet because they reply on taxpayers' money to survive.
Don't be upset, but I am going to have to stop your daily dozen I'm afraid. Mr S informed me the other day that he had decided my twice yearly gift of Allure is now to be the watered down version (eau de) which just doesn't stick to paper.
I'm very upset. :)
"There's the crunch though Dick - how do we acquire a non-political panel?"
F***ed if I know. But we won't have proper policy in this country (or any other, one supposes) until such a time as we can work out how.
This debacle with Prof Nutt is merely a highly-publicised version of what is happening regularly in scientific circles. If a researcher errs from the consensual/political view, he/she is stripped of funding and vilified for it.
There quite simply is no such thing as honest, objective science when related to government, anymore. It's just who has the biggest cheque book.
And we all suffer as a result, as does the public's respect of the resultant laws (and, consequentially, I might argue) all other laws because of a resultant lack of trust in government.
Oh I'm quite sure Davit Nutt's exposure of science is the tip of the iceberg Dick.
Alan Johnson's outburst on Sky this morning certainly brought that home to many I should think.
But still, we have to lean on politicians to be open and honest about how they make decisions and there has to be far more debate with all side contributing. For a start anyway...
Ah well, at least Mr David Nutt with his 'difference of opinion' has not suffered at the hands of the control freaks to the extent of the unfortunate Prof Kelly's erm punishment was.
... not yet, leastways.
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He seems to be a man who will ensure he has eyes in the back of his head at all times wisnaeme.
Hi SR
Just been on the wrong side of a prescribed drug{for supposed hi blood pressure),very suspect,esp. after reading the leaflet. So I googled it,found a site that explained it, then another site that had 200+ complaints from people who had used it. What to do ? Try it very carefully! After 4 days most of the serious side affects showing. Final decider was comment from stepson;" for **** sake, go and sit down, your shuffling around like Frankenstein's monster. That made me think...!! . I analysed things, and realised that this drug was causing , apart from the documented side effects, muscle pain and lack of co-ordination, but worst of all, slowing down my mental capabilities
drastically, hence the above comment. Been off it for two weeks
but still very tired, one of the side effects.
And a couple of days ago I discovered that Fructose a sugar used in many soft drinks can hoist your blood pressure by 90%, And I'm sitting here with industrial quantities of Coke to quench my thirst.Maybe it should be industrial quantities of Glenfiddich instead.
But to be serious, how many pensioners in homes, etc are being fed bulk quantities of these drugs with no clear idea of the total effect they are having on the person. Well, it frightens me!.
May you all recover and be well again very soon.
Cheers
D.
subrosa
why do you say 'public opinion must be informed by scientific findings' and yet deny Global warming when the overwhelming scientific opinion is agiant you?
Because Niko, I don't believe there is 'overwhelming' scientific opinion in favour of global warming, that's why.
There's independent scientific opinion and non-independent opinion. Sometimes you've to dig deep to find out who funds the various organisations, very deep.
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