Chief UK Scientist sacked for revealing truth on drug harms

[cosmobirdie]

If you're from England this is old (and very big) news, but I'm interested to know if reports of Prof. Nutt's heroism have reached foreign shores.

Prof Nutt was last month sacked from his position as head of the Scientific Advisory Council to the British Government, because he made a public statement that British citizens should be more worried about the dangers of alcohol than cannabis or ecstacy, and that he had been forced to come public with this because the government had ignored the overwhelming scientific evidence on so many occasions that he felt he had to take action himself.

In my opinion that is the act of a truly noble man. Here's an extract of what he had to say himself:

"IF THERE is one thing that politicians can and should do to limit the damage caused by illegal drugs, it is to take careful note of the evidence and develop a rational drug policy. Some politicians find it easier to ignore the evidence, and pander to public prejudice instead.

I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK's official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, "Drugs drive politicians out of their minds", the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course..."

To read the rest of Nutt's argument go to
//http://www.brainwaving.com/2009/11/04/david-nutt-governments-should-get-real-on-drugs/

[laughingwillow]

Yeah, man, that made the news in the U$A. Back page, maybe.

lw

[Syd]

Alcohol problems will be second page news sooner than you think. War will always be on page one though. Us Americans have a bad taste in our mouth. After being out of the country for three years, I don't really wanna go back.

[cosmobirdie]

Well I don't know about America being all bitter, cos when I drove across the states with my girlfriend a couple of years ago, and I thought it was filled with the friendliest, sweetest people I've ever met, which is quite the opposite of what I was expecting.

Anyway if you've heard about Nutt getting sacked you should check out why he first got the media spotlight - saying ecstacy was less dangerous than equicy - it has a ring doesn't it...But getting serious, this was based on serious research on the scale of harms of different drugs - legal and illegal. Here's a link to a documentary about it - its very interesting...

//http://www.brainwavingtv.com/2009/the-harms-of-drugs-%E2%80%93-scale-of-the-harms-of-legal-and-illegal-drugs-compared/

[Bushpig]

I read the paper on Equasy, amusing but very clever move by Prof Nutt(regardless of losing his job he has really helped highlight the government propoganda).  

Not that we need the government or its councils to give us permission to use whatever substance we choose (so long as we harm nobody else) it is good to see that even within their systems its starting to fall apart.

TRUTH CANNOT BE CONTAINED~!

Booosh