quote:

Originally posted by ROXunreal:
It has everything to do with your lack of any real arguments at all, which is why I get one sentence replies.

quote:

Originally posted by Badsight-:
becoming educated isnt helping you in avoiding unwise choices

quote:

Let Scientists Write Drug Laws, Says Fired British Expert

David Nutt, a professor of pharmacology who was forced to resign on Friday as the head of an independent panel of experts set up to advise the British government on drug policy, accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of overstating the dangers of cannabis and ecstasy to impress voters and suggested that drug laws should be written by scientists, not politicians.

Last Thursday, in an opinion essay on The Guardian’s Web site (which was adapted from a lecture published on the Web site of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies), Professor Nutt had argued against the government’s decision to treat cannabis as a more dangerous drug. The next day he was asked to resign by Alan Johnson, the British home secretary.

In a letter to The Guardian published on Monday, Mr. Johnson wrote that “Professor Nutt was not sacked for his views,” but “because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy.” Mr. Johnson also took issue with the arguments in a satirical essay Professor Nutt wrote earlier this year for the Journal of Psychopharmacology, in which he mocked media hysteria over the risks associated with taking ecstasy by pointing out that more Britons die while riding horses each year than taking ecstasy. In terms of danger, he wrote, “there is not much difference between horse-riding and ecstasy.”

In an interview with the BBC, Professor Nutt said that the problem was not his behavior but that Mr. Brown’s government had decided to increase penalties for the sale of cannabis and ecstasy, despite evidence that both drugs are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Professor Nutt claimed that “this is the first government that has ever, in the history of the Misuse of Drugs Act, gone against the advice of its scientific panel.” Government ministers, he charged, “are making scientific decisions before they have even consulted with their experts.”

Pressed to accept that his role as a scientific advisor was merely to present evidence to the politicians who then set policy, Professor Nutt suggested that perhaps the solution was to change the equation and remove politics from the process entirely. He told the BBC that drug policy should be set the same way interest rates are set, by experts:

[T]here are some aspects of science which should not be subject to petty party politics and I think the drug laws are one of them. [...]

With drugs particularly we have to educate the public about the harms of drugs, we have to give a very clear message which is based in science, and if we don’t do that, we’re wasting our time. So there’s no point in having drugs laws which are meaningless or arbitrary — just because politicians find it useful and expedient occasionally to come down so-called hard on drugs — that’s undermining the whole purpose of the drugs laws. And just as we took out from party politics the regulation of interest rates and gave that to the Bank of England, surely what we should be doing regarding drugs laws is taking them out of party politics, setting up an independent committee that decides on drug harms, ranks drugs … and then puts that into legislation.

In an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News on Monday, Les King another member of the advisory panel who quit in protest after Professor Nutt was forced out, agreed. Mr. King said:

Drugs classification has become a political football, because the Home Office is taking more recognition of what it thinks public opinion is than the scientific advice it receives from the advisory council. I don’t necessarily think that the public is always well-informed, and I’m not suggesting that the government is always taking a consensus view on public opinion, but rather certain sections of the public, and certain sections of the public view represented by certain sections of the media.

On Monday, Professor Nutt told Nature.com:

I’m hurt. I don’t think it’s just. I’m disappointed rather than angry. I’m not so much disappointed for me, I’m disappointed for science and for the common sense of the government. It just seems to me a nail in the coffin of evidence-based government. [...]

Two years ago, the new prime minister decided that cannabis was a class B drug. Clearly he was determined that he was going to decide what the classification was, independent of the evidence. After that, it was ecstasy. When we said it should be class B, the home secretary Jacqui Smith said “we need to give out the message it is a dangerous drug.”

We’re having a kind of Luddite phase now in politicians. I don’t think it’s going to get any better if the Tories [Conservative Party] get in frankly.

quote:

Originally posted by Badsight-:
cannabis is a gateway drug

your fooling yourself if you believe otherwise . the only healthy amount of weed is zero

saying that alcohol & tobacco are legal , so weed should be also is a redundant argument

alcohol abuse shows that people cant be trusted with drug consumption . but that avoids the health issue

very mild alcohol consumption has health benefits . there are none with marijuana

.

hemp is a fantastic plant , we should be growing forests of it . if only to replace wood pulp in paper production .

the worst self-justifyers on the planet are drug users . you dont give drug users views any creedence when it comes to drug policy . they simply are nothing close to honest when objectivity is required . they cant even be honest about the way drug use has changed themselves / personality / mindset

quote:

Originally posted by Badsight-:

quote:

Originally posted by ROXunreal:
Sorry but I prefer to get my information from scientists and independent organizations who have actually done research, rather than from school pseudo-psychiatrists

having buried teenage OD victims , who one & all started on marijuana is invalidated because it doesnt support pro-drug lies

& this is how self-justifyers work

quote:

Originally posted by ROXunreal:
It's like saying bicycles are dangerous because someone who rode one later bought a motorcycle and crashed into a wall. It has nothing to do with logic and common sense.

the need for transportation , the want to get stoned

2 totally different things

just because your riding or driving is no certanty of crashing . puffing on weed will get you stoned , no surprise circumstances required

because it costs money to punish offenders , is no reason to legalise - give up the weed . your entire life will thank you for it

quote:

Originally posted by raaaid:
hemp was banned cause it makes people think and to give room to petrochemicals

Good hunting,
Cajun76
Magnum-PC.com
Check it, bleed. Bro... was ON! Didn't trip. But the folks was freakin', Man. Hey, and the pilots were laid to the bone, Homes.
So Blood hammered out and jammed jet ship. Tightened that bad sucker inside the runway like a mother. Sheet. - Airplane II

quote:

Originally posted by Cajun76:
] Yeah, every pothead I ever met was a deep thinker.

quote:

Originally posted by roybaty:
I wonder if these puritans ever get buzzed or downright intoxicated by alcoholic beverages on occasion.

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Flying online as NORAD_Shinjiro