Nutt on LSD

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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. (Actually, Professor Nutt made this known almost exacty a year ago post the Beyond2008 NGO consultations attended by yours truly, see NZ reference below /Blair

as reported in www.telegraph.co.uk

The news has emerged after the Professor David Nutt was ordered to apologise by the Home Secretary for saying that taking ecstasy was no worse than riding a horse.

Prof Nutt is chairman of the Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is set to recommend that ecstasy should be downgraded from A to B.

In a radio interview last year, months before he became chairman of the council, Prof Nutt disclosed that he also favoured downgrading LSD from A to B.

He said: “There are several drugs that are in class A and probably should not be there, like ecstasy and LSD. There are other drugs that should be up the scale.

“Ecstasy and LSD which tend to cause little dependence and relatively moderate degrees of personal damage are probably too highly classified.”

LSD is ranked as a class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The maximum penalty for supplying the drug is life imprisonment.

Prof Nutt, who took over as chairman of the council last November, went on to call for a major overhaul of the drugs classification rules in Britain.

He said: “I think it is time to have a complete review of all the drug laws. And I would like to have that in the UK.”

Prof Nutt said he was content that drugs like “heroin, crack, cocaine and metamphetamine pure” should remain as Class A drugs.

He told Radio New Zealand: “It is quite hard to move drugs out of classes. In the UK we have has these class system now since 1971.

“Only one drug has ever been moved down a class and a couple have moved up. Cannabis moved down and opiates moved up.”

Prof Nutt said that if alcohol emerged as a substance in modern Britain it would be classified as an illegal Class B drug.

He said: “If alcohol was suddenly to emerge in society now and it was suddenly assessed as other drugs of abuse it would be rated as a B class drug and therefore not be made legal.”

The Daily Telegraph disclosed last week how Prof Nutt had written in an academic journal that taking the drug was no more dangerous than an addiction to horse riding.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Jacqui Smith told MPs that his comments sent the wrong message to young people about the dangers of drugs.

She said: “I made clear to Prof Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4581743/Now-Home-Office-drugs-adviser-wants-to-downgrade-LSD-from-A-to-B.html as reported in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Related articles by Zemanta

• Child drug offenders double as advisors say Ecstasy should be downgraded (telegraph.co.uk)
• Home Office’s drugs adviser apologises for saying ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse (telegraph.co.uk)
• Jacqui Smith ecstatically ignores more scientific advice (theregister.co.uk)
• Call to downgrade ecstasy to class B (guardian.co.uk)
• Council advises ecstasy downgrade (news.bbc.co.uk)
• In praise of … the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (guardian.co.uk)
• Smith says no to downgrading ecstasy (guardian.co.uk)

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The biggest problem with ecstasy is that it’s illegal

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On Friday 26th of September the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will conduct public hearings as part of its review of the classification of ecstasy. Previous comments suggest that ACMD will in all likelihood recommend ecstasy be downgraded from Class A to Class B. Whilst Vernon Coaker MP, the Government’s drug spokesperson, has made it abundantly clear (in his evidence to the Science and Technology Select Committee in 2006), that whatever the evidence, the Government would not change its classification.

Thursday 25th September 2008

The same day here in New Zealand the Police are manufacturing Drug Harms by the bucket load.

English kingpin behind ecstasy haul: police NZHerald, The 38-year-old Englishman was among 12 people arrested for their part in the alleged importation of 100000 tablets of the party drug ecstasy over the past … (they found 14,000, which means 86,000 have been distributed and consumed without seemingly harming anyone! An ommision of fact consistent with the British experience. /Blair)

73 arrested, $1m in drugs seized [Stuff.co.nz], Police have arrested 73 people and uncovered up to $1 million worth of drugs in a three-month operation targeting dealers in methamphetamine, ecstasy, …

More people sought after drug bust TVNZ

73 arrested in drug raids New Zealand Herald

73 arrested in covert drug operation Radio New Zealand

crime.co.nz – Scoop.co.nz (press release)all 33 news articles »

making this all this more interesting read, Sophie Morris: Can we calm down about Ecstasy

The Transform spokesperson said:

“The ecstasy review will produce little more than posturing on all sides. Given that the Government overruled the Council on cannabis classification, the entire exercise is doomed before it has begun. The Council’s time would be far better spent reviewing the harms caused by criminalising drugs in the first place.

“From Transform’s perspective any reduction in unjust criminal penalties for consenting drug users is a positive step. But we remain deeply concerned that regardless of alphabetic classification, ecstasy will remain illegal, its users will still be subject to serious criminal sanctions, and the control of its production and supply will remain in the hands of unregulated criminal profiteers supplying pills and powders of unknown strength made with unknown ingredients .

“The Council’s job is to reduce the health and social harms associated with the misuse of drugs. It is of significant concern that the Advisory Council is using a system of classification that was derided comprehensively by the Science and Technology Select Committee less than two years ago.

“There is no evidence that punitive law and its enforcement has anything other than, at best, a marginal impact on levels of drug use or misuse. The prohibitionist regime is unique in the public health field in deploying criminal sanctions to reduce social and health harms. It is also uniquely ineffective. The major problem with ecstasy isn’t that it’s classified wrongly, the problem is that it’s illegal.”

Notes for editors

• Transform’s submission to the ACMD ecstasy review
• Transform critique of the classification system in Dugs and Alcohol today
• Science and Technology Select Committee report on the classification system
• 2006 Lancet paper on drug harm ranking

Contact

Danny Kushlick, Head of Policy and Communications 07970 174747
Steve Rolles, Head of Research 07980 213943

About Transform

Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a charitable thinktank that exists to reduce harm and promote sustainable health and wellbeing by bringing about a just, effective and humane system to regulate and control drugs at local, national and international levels.

—
Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
Also hear: Professor Colin Blakemore, a member of the independent UK Drug Policy Commission, and Dr Philip Murphy, of Edge Hill University discuss whether the illegal drug is more dangerous than alcohol.

Social Ecologist ‘at large’
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
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http://blair4mayor.com/
http://efsdp.org/

ph (643) 389 4065 cell 027 265 7219

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