UK health secretary sacks drugs adviser

[muppet]

For those who haven't come across this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8334774.stm

My facebook status sums up my feelings on the subject:

Robert Old has never touched a spliff in his life, but thinks it's so patently absurd to sack a scientist for nominally creating "confusion between scientific advice and policy" that he's almost tempted to light up a camberwell carrot in protest.

Predictably, the shadow home secretary wallowed in the typical Tory self-image of the last bastion of law and order in a broken society, but the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman condemmed the move.

How do other people feel about this?

 

[Sorry!]

For those who haven't come across this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8334774.stm

My facebook status sums up my feelings on the subject:


Predictably, the shadow home secretary wallowed in the typical Tory self-image of the last bastion of law and order in a broken society, but the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman condemmed the move.

How do other people feel about this?

Just goes to show how the world views scientific thought. I saw a book at the store the other day called 'Unscientific America' looked pretty interesting.

 

[f95toli]

I'd say Nutt is at least partly to blame for this. The fact is that at when he accepted the position as government advisor he ALSO took on a "political" responsibility and was no longer an independent scientist.
He must after all have realized that what we was saying in the media about the classification of cannabis etc was in fact more policy than science AND that the policy he was advocating was in direct conflict with the official line. He has also been very clumsy in his contacts with media and has made a number of very controversial statements.

Also, I don't know much about the medical effects of drugs but some of his statements DO seem rather strange. He has among other things claimed that LSD is no more dangerous than alcohol which I find rather hard to belive.

 

[dx]

He has among other things claimed that LSD is no more dangerous than alcohol which I find rather hard to belive.

You may find it hard to believe, but it's true. LSD is nontoxic. It goes to show how schizophrenic the public view of drugs has become due to propaganda. In America, cocaine is classified as schedule II, while cannabis is classified as schedule I. The drug laws have more to do with history and politics than with their harmfulness.

 

[SticksandStones]

I'd say Nutt is at least partly to blame for this. The fact is that at when he accepted the position as government advisor he ALSO took on a "political" responsibility and was no longer an independent scientist.
He must after all have realized that what we was saying in the media about the classification of cannabis etc was in fact more policy than science AND that the policy he was advocating was in direct conflict with the official line. He has also been very clumsy in his contacts with media and has made a number of very controversial statements.

Also, I don't know much about the medical effects of drugs but some of his statements DO seem rather strange. He has among other things claimed that LSD is no more dangerous than alcohol which I find rather hard to belive.

You should read the study "Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs and potential misuse" (David Nutt, Leslie A King, William Saulsbury, Colin Blakemore). In terms of physical/psychological damage coupled with potential for abuse LSD isn't very harmful when compared to tobacco and alcohol.

 

[CRGreathouse]

You may find it hard to believe, but it's true. LSD is nontoxic.

Do you have a cite with its LD50?

 

[ideasrule]

Do you have a cite with its LD50?

See appendix 14 here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/31_07_06_drugsreport.pdf

LSD's LD50 is extremely low, but it is also distributed in extremely low dosages that are unlikely to cause death or debilitation.

 

[dx]

Do you have a cite with its LD50?

The lethal dose of LSD for humans is estimated to be around 1000 times the common dose. See this page for LD50 and references: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_dose.shtml.

 

[ideasrule]

Also, I don't know much about the medical effects of drugs but some of his statements DO seem rather strange. He has among other things claimed that LSD is no more dangerous than alcohol which I find rather hard to belive.

Just to clarify: LSD is not only no more dangerous than alcohol, it's actually significantly less dangerous. Check the paper I linked to.