(UK) Council advises ecstasy downgrade

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

The body that advises the government on illegal drugs is to recommend ecstasy be downgraded to a Class B drug.

Ecstasy is currently grouped with heroin, cocaine, crack and LSD in Class A. Suppliers of such drugs can face a life sentence in prison. The Home Office has made it clear it will reject the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' recommendation.

Earlier, a row broke out after the council's head Prof David Nutt likened the dangers of ecstasy to horse riding. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith responded by accusing him of trivialising the dangers of the drug. He later apologised for any offence and said the views were not those of his colleagues on the council.

Memory loss

The advisory council reviewed the latest evidence on ecstasy last year and held a secret ballot of its 31 members on the issue of re-classification. It is understood the result was not unanimous, but a majority voted to recommend moving the drug to Class B. The council's view is that ecstasy is not as harmful as other Class A drugs and causes far fewer deaths. It says ecstasy use had no significant impact on short-term memory loss and found little evidence to link ecstasy to criminal behaviour.

But it will call for further research into the effects of taking ecstasy, particularly on younger users.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7882708.stm

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What's the point of having an advisory council if you're going to continuously ignore its advice...?

[LeftofU]

1. Wharehouse Party...

Whoo hoo!

[nebenaube]

2. 2 cents...

The problem with any illegal synthetic (aside from addiction) is bad chemistry ... it's the impurities that do most of the damage.

[Chulanowa]

3. The chemicals themselves can be pretty nasty too

any substance will damage the body if you use too much of it. Many chemicals have lingering effects - The fire retardant stuff they put in carpets sticks in your fat cells forever. Frankly, while I'm not one to begrudge people for screwing themselves up, I'm going to think they're a little nuts if htey want to take in a batch of mind-altering chemicals of dubious pedigree, even in a "pure" form.

At least Peyote lets you know you're poisoning yourself . "Okay, there's my lunch. Hi lunch, I missed you!"

[time_has_come]

4. Maybe ecstacy doesn't grab hold and destroy like crack does...

but it does destroy.

So hard to quantify. It's easier for users to escape ecstasy than crack. Crack has such an incredible hold on people and causes them to commit such damage on friends, family, and strangers.

Yet ecstasy has it's own list of damages. Chronic users lose the ability to be happy, for example. And....well, blah blah blah.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Jacqui Smith...

Is the single most dangerous person in Great Britain. Far more so than any drug of abuse.

[Oldenuff]

6. I have a link that states changing LSD from A to B

and yes,ecstacy is also mentioned a little further in the article..



Now Home Office drugs adviser wants to downgrade LSD from A to B


LSD, the powerful hallucinogenic drug made famous by The Beatles, should be downgraded from a Class A drug, according to the Government's drugs adviser.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4581743/Now-Home-Office-drugs-adviser-wants-to-downgrade-LSD-from-A-to-B.html

[Prophet 451]

8. Less sure about that one

Purely because of the potential for death by misadventure with LSD. Then again, some proper research could probably work out something about that.

[Prophet 451]

7. They always ignore the council

The council has been recommending that cannabis be legalised (or at least decriminalised) for years now; both major parties, terrified of being labelled "soft on drugs" by the tabloids, ignore them or occasionally attack the council.

[DUlover2909]

9. There's nothing like acid on ecstasy....

nothing like - nothing like - nothing like - nothing like

BAWM-BAWM-BAWM

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Smith didn't just say "trivialised", she accused Nutt of "making up a link"

The British “government” has a colourful record of commissioning independent scientific advice and then blithely trashing it when it does not conform to ministers’ prejudices, particularly on the subject of the WAD (War Against Drugs).1 Over the weekend, news emerged that Professor David Nutt, chair of the Home Office’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, had written in a journal that, on a strict comparison of immediate deaths and injuries that result, taking Ecstasy is no more dangerous than horse-riding.2 On the statistics he cites of annual death and disability, this is simply a fact. It is not an opinion, dangerous or otherwise: Nutt has simply counted some things up and told us the answer.

Happily, facts are rarely allowed to get in the way of the cretinous moralizing of pro-WADdists. And so came a more-than-usually moronic session in Parliament yesterday, wherein home secretary “Jacqui” Smith screeched:

I spoke to Professor Nutt about his comments this morning. I told him that I was surprised and profoundly disappointed by the article. I am sure that most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug-taking.

The “link that he makes up”? IANAL, but I think this manages to be both a falsehood about what Nutt says, and a slander of him for fabricating evidence (or at least it would be a slander if it weren’t for Parliamentary privilege). As far as I can tell from press coverage,3 Nutt did not assert — still less invent — any “link” between the two activities. He did not propose that horse-riding was a gateway pastime to Ecstasy use. He merely compared them in their harms. Is to compare two things now inevitably to “make up” a “link” between them? Of course it isn’t, and of course “Jacqui” Smith is either a numbskull or a liar.
...
http://unspeak.net/sends-the-wrong-message/

I think Evan Harris has got this right:

But, in questions to the House of Commons Speaker, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said Prof Nutt was a "distinguished scientist" and asked whether it was "right to criticise him here when he cannot answer back for what is set out in a scientific publication".

He added: "What's the future for scientific independence if she (Ms Smith) asks that scientists apologise for their views?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7879378.stm