Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge supporter of reforming drugs policy in the UK so that it actually incorporates some small amount of logic, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that I’m disgusted by the firing of Professor David Nutt from his position as the government’s chief scientific advisor on drugs policy.

The comment that recently brought Professor Nutt to the media’s attention was “there is not much difference between horse riding and ecstasy”. On the face of it this statement seems ridiculous – but statistically it’s true: fewer people are harmed as a direct result of taking ecstasy than from horse riding accidents.  As is always the way with these things the media took the quote out of its original context and breathlessly announced “horse riding more dangerous than ecstasy”.

What the professor was trying to say is that drug use (not abuse) is generally about as dangerous as any number of everyday activities such as rock climbing, driving or swimming but we don’t seek to ban these mundane activities, much less hand out lengthy prison sentences to those who partake in them so why do the same for drugs?

For example – there is no strong evidence directly linking recreational use of cannabis to any form of harm and nobody has ever died as a direct result of its use or abuse whereas alcohol directly causes 6,000 deaths and over 500,000 – 800,000 hospital admissions every year in the UK alone according to NHS figures. So why is it that I get a criminal record if I am caught smoking pot and nothing for habitually binge drinking?  The logical conclusion is that the system doesn’t effectively assess harm and is based nearly entirely on politics, which is exactly what Professor Nutt was saying. Only in British politics can you be fired from a voulentary position for stating the truth.

Infact, in 2006 the Science Select Committee published a report (PDF) where twenty legal and illegal drugs were ranked according to statistical measures of harm based on current research at the time. It concluded that Alcohol should be rated 5th (just after class A street methadone), Tobacco should be rated 9th (after class B amphetamines), class B cannabis was rated 11th (just above unclassified solvents) and class A ecstacy was rated 18th (above legal poppers).

It’s time we had some sensible drugs policy in the UK that looks at how much harm a substance causes and legislates accordingly rather than desperately clinging to an archaic system that prevents addicts from seeking help and criminalizes otherwise law abiding citizens.

Thanks to Funkandjazz for the picture.