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Published online 12 February 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.95
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Ecstasy advice is a bitter pill
Government refuses to swallow independent ecstasy recommendations.
The UK government has again rejected key recommendations from its independent council on drug misuse, leading some to question its use of scientific advice.
The recommendation that MDMA, or 'ecstasy', be moved from the legal category of 'class A', reserved for the most dangerous drugs, to 'class B', was ruled out, along with the idea of offering a service to test the purity of pills for drug users.
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If there is a possiblity of harm and misuse, does it matter which class it is? After all it is still a recreational drug. Ban it all.
Chong Da Tan, by that logic, we should ban many other enjoyable activities such as motorcycling, unmarried sex, and drinking alcohol. Such an encroachment on personal liberty is neither acceptable nor tolerable in a free society. I applaud Mr. Nutt for his rational approach to risk assessment and risk tolerance.
Never mind, chaps! It is hard to take that council seriously anyway. A good reason for that is the cited Lancet paper by Nutt, Blakemore et al. It is in a class of its own with its 'delphic' approach to drug classification which appeared to be timed and coined simply to argue aginst the reclassification of cannabis from class 'C' to 'B'. Characteristically, it failed to spell out even a single time the word 'schizophrenia' as the main risk factor associated with cannabis, while its intravenous use was given the risk score of 0! That nobody insects that stuff apparently did not matter to them (though it falsely lowered the risk score), just to mention a few gripes.
The English government has a history of disliking the reports of select and eminent scientific committees on drugs, which have repeatedly noted that cannabis, and now MDMA too, are essentially harmless. So the excited response to Nutt et al. should come as no surprise. As with most western governments, England's condones alcohol and tobacco, both highly addictive, which kill tens of thousands of people per year, while cursing cannabis that kills essentially none. As to schizophrenia, it transpires that the schizophrenic population is very highly enriched for tobacco users (eg. Fawzi et al.Schizophrenia res.2007; 95:236). The problem here seems to be political and sociological - not scientific.