Friday 30 October 2009

"Will no-one rid me of this turbulent Drugs Tsar?"

From the BBC:

The UK's chief drugs adviser has been sacked by home secretary Alan Johnson after criticising government policies.

Professor David Nutt had been critical of the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from Class C. He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said the drugs classification system was being used in a "political way". The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which he headed, is the UK's official drugs advisory body.


A couple of these quangista actually take their remit seriously, do some proper research and go round telling the truth. Look where it gets them.

12 comments:

Tim Almond said...

From the Home Office site:-

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is an independent expert body that advises government on drug related issues in the UK.

That's independent in the same way that Darth Vadar's agreement with Lando Calrissian could be called an "agreement"

James Higham said...

A couple of these quangista actually take their remit seriously, do some proper research and go round telling the truth.

Gets boring, no doubt, sitting on one's bum and drinking tea.

Curmudgeon said...

I just heard a radio interview with Prof. Nutt and he came across as a typical Righteous bansturbator, banging on about how if he had his way alcohol would be a Class B controlled drug.

He also refused to be drawn on whether the harm caused by ecstasy, proportionate to the number of users and the frequency of use, was less or more than that caused by alcohol.

His whole argument is undermined by the fact that he is talking about "total harm" to society and takes no account of the incidence of use of particular substances.

The point about alcohol is that you can consume it regularly in moderation and cause yourself no harm whatsoever. Other drugs need to be judged against the same yardstick.

Mark Wadsworth said...

OC, my point was he showed a teensy bit of independence and got sacked. Which sort of proves your point.

JH, he probably wishes he'd stuck to drinking tea.

Curmudge, possibly true (I wasn't aware of that) but we must be thankful for small mercies.

Ross said...

Who's going to be his replacement, Paul Dacre or David Blunkett?

Tim Almond said...

What's good is that we now have an example to throw at people who use terms like "independent watchdog".

Of course, independence ultimately relies on having gold and guns.

Curmudgeon said...

He said "parents should be aware that the drug that is by far the most likely to harm their children is alcohol." While that may well be true across the whole population, it doesn't add the vital caveat if they use it.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Ross, they're going to appoint "an advisory council of tabloid newspaper editors" (TM Chris Huhne).

AntiCitizenOne said...

Independent BoE, David Blanchflower, HAHAHA!

Sorry a bit tipsy, so the maximum level of insight in my comments is pretty low.

WV: sninge (has 1050 hits on google!)

banned said...

"The UK's chief drugs adviser has been sacked by home secretary Alan Johnson" As a warning to the others.

JuliaM said...

"I just heard a radio interview with Prof. Nutt and he came across as a typical Righteous bansturbator, banging on about how if he had his way alcohol would be a Class B controlled drug."

He's living up to his name, then?

John B said...

The point about alcohol is that you can consume it regularly in moderation and cause yourself no harm whatsoever. Other drugs need to be judged against the same yardstick.

Ditto cannabis, ditto ecstasy. Not ditto heroin or methamphetamine. Which is why the committee ranked the drugs as they did.