Prof David Nutt on drugs

[Elliot Kane]

In Britain right now, the best way to tell whether any public servant is really good at their job is to see if they get sacked. Competence being the equivalent of high crimes and misdemeanours under this bunch of incompetent fools (With apologies to fools for the insult), it's a real commendation to be given the boot by them.

Prof David Nutt committed the crime of taking a real look at drugs in an unbalanced and non-political fashion. I suspect this will be of interest to many here (Not least myself) as his conclusions are not always what might be expected...

Article in the Telegraph.

The top 20 most dangerous drugs according to the Prof are:

1. Heroin (Class A)

2. Cocaine (Class A)

3. Barbiturates (Class B)

4. Street methadone (Class A)

5. Alcohol (Not controlled)

6. Ketamine (Not controlled)

7. Benzodiazepine (Class B)

8. Amphetamine (Class B)

9. Tobacco (No class)

10. Bupranorphine (Class C)

11. Cannabis (Class B)

12. Solvents (Not controlled)

13. 4-MTA (Class A)

14. LSD (Class A)

15. Methylphenidate (Class B)

16. Anabolic steroids (Class C)

17. GHB (Class C)

18. Ecstasy (Class A)

19. Alkylnitrates (Not controlled)

20. Khat (Not controlled)

[Ubereil]

Assuming the list is why he acually got fired (which the article doesn't acually say, it just says he got fired and that he published this controversial list) it's indeed moronity. Punishing pepole for holding controversial ideas is dangerous to society. If you disagree with someone like that, prove them wrong. Don't fire them.

Apart from that I'm pretty sceptical to Alcohol beating Meth. From what I've read Meth ranks higher than Alcohol in all three areas that was measured. But that's hardly reason enough to fire anyone.

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

I'm sure the effects of each would vary according to the study, too, honestly. There are a lot of factors one may choose to ignore or include, such as related deaths or deaths where the drug was a contributory factor.

We certainly need more studies and the more informed opinions the better, IMO.

It may be impossible to act on some of the findings, politically speaking, but that doesn't mean they are not valuable.

(The sacking was for saying things that were politically inconvenient, basically. Several other scientists have resigned in protest as a result)

[Lews]

Maybe he was fired for incompetence. That list is bad.

[Ubereil]

In what way?

Übereil

[Lews]

In his opinion of the danger levels of drugs.

[Dark Phoenix Rising]

that list is the compiled list after they trawlled through medical, police, and public records, and then compiled into a matrix to give each drug a score in 9 different areas. And finally the scores were added up to get that list.

[Terrordar]

Meth is the most addictive and dangerous drug on the market right now. This guy must be an idiot, not controversial.

[Flix]

Refined sugar should be higher than most of these.

And why the heck are cannabis and LSD so high on the list?

Especially LSD. Causes no physical harm, no dependence, social and family harm must have been off the chart...

Take away the smoking from cannabis (with a vaporizer or cooking) and cannabis doesn't even register on any of his criteria.