Government vs science over drug and alcohol policy

[grammychronic]

"David NuttThere are several important aspects of what has happened, which some are calling the Nutt-gate affair. The first is the overwhelming public support I received, with tens of thousands sending emails, signing up to protest websites, and a petition to the government to reinstate me. Many academic groups have come out in support and there is an online petition in the academic world. A protest march was held on Nov 7, organised by a group called “Students for sensible drugs policy”, whose name represents exactly what I am saying—drugs policy should be based on evidence and common sense, the two factors that should drive interventions to reduce drug-related harm.
There is one major benefit of my sacking in that it has given huge publicity to the issue of drugs and their harms, and this public debate is welcome. It now seems that most people accept alcohol is a drug, and that there is no apparent dissent from my statement that alcohol is one of the most harmful drugs in use today. Sadly the attempt4 earlier this year by the government's Chief Medical Officer to persuade government to act on this danger through the only intervention of proven efficacy—pricing—was summarily rejected in a similar fashion to the way the ACMD's recommendations on the classifications of cannabis and ecstasy were also dismissed by this government.5, 6
The scientific community has been almost totally behind me, although the issue of cannabis and schizophrenia has been resurrected7 by my assertions on the basis of the evidence accumulated by the ACMD that cannabis harms only a small percentage of users. I have repeatedly stated the drug is not safe, but that the idea that you can reduce use through raising the classification in the Misuse of Drugs Act from class C to class B—where it had previously been placed, but thus now increasing the maximum penalty for possession for personal use to 5 years in prison—is implausible. Use of cannabis clearly makes psychotic symptoms worse and stopping use is a major element in the treatment of such users. The drug probably does cause some cases of schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses, but the ACMD estimate5 was that, to stop a single case of schizophrenia, we would have to stop 5000 young men (and more for women) ever using the drug, which does not seem a viable public health approach. The association between cannabis and schizophrenia is clearly complex and Frisher and colleagues, using the UK General Practice Research Database from 1996 to 2005, found that there was no increase in the number of cases of schizophrenia despite the big increase in self-reported cannabis use over the period before and during the analysis.8 Those who claimed that there was a link had suggested that there had been an increase in schizophrenia after greater cannabis use. However, more detailed investigation by Frisher and colleagues did not find any evidence to support this idea. Thus there is not even any increase in the incidence of schizophrenia to explain."



More:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61956-5/fulltext