Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

people will gorge on a couple of allowed pleasures. if everything were allowed, I doubt people would be that bothered by it all. take the English who go to Amsterdam as an example. They go crazy in the coffee shops, where as the Dutch around them are not too bothered about smoking a spliff. they can take it or leave it because it's always available.

If you control the content and the flow, then you have more power over the effects. like a water dam. all that water is there which we could just drink, but by directing and controlling the flow, it's much more effective at being useful in other ways at the same time (ie, creating electricity, increasing land area, etc.). In this case, tobacco and alcohol are seen by many as more a dependency than a recreational thing. their own dependency on the drug is hightened because they are effectively only drip fed those 2 'pleasures'. if there were more available to them, the appeal and in some cases, the need, would be much less.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

A fantasy involving Jacqui Smith is more commonly known as having a nightmare. :D

Speaking of nightmares I wonder who the sadist was that styled her hair and then convinced her it looked good. :D

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

The Nutty Professor hits back:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8335189.stm

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

I can vouch for that having just come back. You'd be suprised the kind of people you see in there, from all works of life. Some wearing suits after work, others just socialising with friends - stopped off for a joint, a coffee and a catch up.

Thankfully we arent the average brits who go there as my friend is a smoker but has his own constant supply and we've been many times, but we did see many non-dutch idiots falling out the doorways on 'whiteys' who'd completely over indulged :rolleyes:

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

My sister told me tonight that a woman gave her a lecture about fibbing about her youngests age to go up Big Ben, saying "I waited until all mine were 11" the bloody cheek, it was only Jaqui Smith, my sisters white lie didn't cost the tax payer any money unlike hers, still at least her blatent lies and theiving ways have cost her a seat in the Lords.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

About £3billion a year in Taxes. They will never outlaw smoking like drinking it brings in to much money in Taxes.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

Not sure about that sadly..

Oh and do they have seats anymore... beds might be more appropriate for many of the inhabitants of 'the other place'... ;)

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

source

So science should be kept hidden away from the public. That way who knows if it disagrees with your policy.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

If they had their way Joe Public would only be spoon fed with the propaganda they wanted him to know.

You know, stuff like, you have the best health service in the World, you enjoy the best standard of living in the World, the UK taxes are the lowest in the World, our education system leads the World. :D

When I was a kid and the internet had not even been thought of this was the type of tripe we were fed and we believed it. How easy it was in those days to oppress and mislead the electorate. It's much harder these days but they still try it on at every opportunity.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

I just find this whole thing absolutely fascinating, for what it says about our society as well as our politicians' and scientists' attitude to it.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

I am confused? I would say it shows politicians' contempt for their responsibilities. I don't see what it says about scientists' attitude to society though.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

Which probably means you share the scientists' attitude to the issue. ;)

There are a number of ways of looking at this, and to be fair, David Nutt and all of the various Labour politicians who have been wheeled out to address the issue over the weekend have acknowledged it in some form or other.

Nutt has made a scientific point, that in his considered opinion, based on his evaluation of the evidence, the illegal drugs he mentioned are less dangerous than some legal ones. Government policy, on the other hand, makes a political point, which by necessity takes in a broader view of the issue than cold hard scientific data about the relative toxicity of cannabis and tobacco, or ecstasy and alcohol.

The only thing that really makes me cross about this is our current administration's craven terror of honest, open discussion. Nutt should be free to have his say, regardless of what unpaid work he may do on behalf of the Government. It's not as if they've even bought his silence (which actually begs the question, can they really 'sack' him anyway, or can they merely decide not to ask his opinion any more?). The Government has made policy after weighing scientific evidence against the attitudes of society towards drugs. If that's what they want to do - and I believe that is the right thing for them to do - then they need to be honest about it.

Johnson could have handled this in a far more grown up manner. He could have acknowledged Nutt's views and then gone on to state that he believes there's a place in the debate for notions of shared community morality that sit alongside data about what is more or less harmful for an individual to ingest. But he didn't - instead he decided to play power politics, tried to slap his opponent down and in the process simply made himself and his Government colleagues look like they're somehow afraid of the truth.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

That does slightly contrast with the massive decline in smoking in recent decades *precisely because* of things like legislation, regulation, taxation and government health campaigns. Banning it I'm not in favour of, but you've got to admit that far fewer people are smoking and therefore presumably they've accepted the reduction in tax income in return for greater public health.

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

It isn't just Prof. Nutt who has claimed, based upon his expert opinion and evaluation of the evidence, that the drugs he mentioned are less dangerous than some legal ones.

The ACMD itself (comprised of a wide range of experts in medicine, pharmacology, psychiatry, chemistry, social issues, legal & criminal issues, etc.) recommended, based upon their expert opinion and evaluation of the evidence, that cannabis should remain a Class C, and not be upgraded back to a Class B, due to it being less harmful than other Class B drugs. The Government ignored this expert advice, choosing instead to pander to puritanism & the tabloids.

The ACMD itself recommended, based upon their expert opinion and evaluation of the evidence, that ecstasy should be downgraded from a Class A to a Class B, due to it being less harmful than other Class A drugs. The Government ignored this expert advice, choosing instead to pander to puritanism & the tabloids.

Adding to the ACMD's past reports, there was also a report published in the Lancet in 2007, by a team of experts including Prof. Nutt and Prof. Colin Blakemore (then head of the MRC), along with contributions from people in various fields such as psychiatry, chemistry, pharmacology, forensics, police and legal services.

The study examined the current drug classification system and looked into the physical harm, social harm, and likelihood of addiction of twenty different drugs - including legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco as well as illegal drugs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...rugsandalcohol

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/la...464-4/fulltext

The report's authors stated that, based upon the available scientific evidence and their expert opinions, alcohol and tobacco are actually more dangerous than cannabis, LSD, and ecstasy.

They also said that if alcohol and tobacco happened to be classed in the same way as illegal drugs, alcohol would be a Class A, and tobacco would be a Class B.

The study concluded that, of the 20 drugs they investigated, heroin & cocaine were the most dangerous. Alcohol came in at 5th most dangerous, 6th place went to Ketamine (currently only a Class C), in 9th place was tobacco, 11th place cannabis, 14th place LSD, 18th place Ecstasy.

[I believe it was the talk of drug rankings from this report which sparked off this whole thing recently]


We need a proper grown-up debate about what is actually more harmful, and how our current shambles of a classification system should work. But our political masters seem to prefer to just go, in the words of South Park's Mr Mackey "Drugs are bad, m'kay!". They want evidence to fit policy, when surely it should be the other way around.



Hmm, two members of the ACMD have resigned following Prof. Nutt's sacking:

Dr Les King, former head of the Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Forensic Science Service:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8336635.stm

Marion Walker, member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and clinical director of Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's substance misuse service:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8336884.stm


I wonder how many more will follow...

Re: Truth hurts, eh!?!?
 

Agreed. However I'd argue we're not going to get such a debate whilst the two sides involved are more interested in lampooning and caricaturing each other. Misrepresenting those you (presumably) disagree with as championing 'puritanism' isn't really grown up, is it?

You're right, the Government does seem to want the evidence to fit its policy, and that's a thoroughly awful way to carry on. However that doesn't mean we have to default to what you're proposing, which seems to be policy-making based purely on scientific evidence. You haven't even begun to address how you define 'harm' - at the moment you seem to be arbitrarily assuming that 'harm' consists of no more or less than what actually happens when you ingest a drug (whether legal or not).