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British drug advisor sacked for talking science at politicians
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| PivotTechno |
...and some of you think things are going totalitarian in Canaduh:
Government drug adviser David Nutt sacked
(nutt-sacked, gettit?)
| quote: | Professor David Nutt, the government's chief drug adviser, has been sacked a day after claiming that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.
Nutt incurred the wrath of the government when he claimed in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "The home secretary has asked Professor Nutt to resign as chair of the ACMD [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs].
"In a letter he [Alan Johnson] expressed surprise and disappointment over Professor Nutt's comments which damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs.
"We remain determined to crack down on all illegal substances and minimise their harm to health and society as a whole."
Nutt had criticised politicians for "distorting" and "devaluing" the research evidence in the debate over illicit drugs.
Arguing that some "top" scientific journals had published "horrific examples" of poor quality research on the alleged harm caused by some illicit drugs, the Imperial College professor called for a new way of classifying the harm caused by both legal and illegal drugs.
"Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth," he wrote in the paper from the centre for crime and justice studies at King's College, London, published yesterday.
"Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively."
Nutt said tonight he was disappointed by the decision but linked it to "political" considerations. "It's unusual political times, I suppose, elections and all that. It's disappointing," he told Sky News. "But politics is politics and science is science and there's a bit of a tension between them sometimes."
Nutt clashed with Jacqui Smith when she was home secretary after he compared the 100 deaths a year from horseriding with the 30 deaths a year linked to ecstasy.
Smith also ignored the recommendation of Nutt's advisory committee that cannabis should not be reclassified from class C back to class B, leading to heavier penalties.
He criticised Smith's use of the "precautionary principle" to justify her decision to reclassify cannabis and said that by erring on the side of caution politicians "distort" and "devalue" the research evidence.
"This leads us to a position where people really don't know what the evidence is," he said adding that the initial decision to downgrade the classification of cannabis led to a fall in the use of the drug.
Nutt acknowledged there was a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness linked to cannabis use. But he argued that to prevent one episode of schizophrenia it would be necessary to "stop 5,000 men aged 20 to 25 from ever using" cannabis.
Nutt also renewed his support for reclassifying ecstasy from a class A drug to class B, saying the advisory committee "won the intellectual argument" over the issue but obviously didn't win the decision after the home secretary vetoed the move.
He said the quality of some research papers about cannabis and ecstasy was so poor the articles had to be retracted.
Richard Garside, director of the centre for crime and justice, said Nutt's briefing paper gave an insight into what drugs policy might look like if it was based on the research evidence rather than political or moral positioning.
Garside added: "I'm shocked and dismayed that the home secretary appears to believe that political calculation trumps honest and informed scientific opinion. The message is that when it comes to the Home Office's relationship with the research community honest researchers should be seen but not heard.
"The home secretary's action is a bad day for science and a bad day for the cause of evidence-informed policy making." |
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| Sorin.16v |
| David got nutt sacked |
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| DaRoZa |
| the UK government seems completely backwards these days... recently they started forcing troubled families to install CCTVs in their homes to make sure nothing deviant is going on. you don't have to be an alex jones enthusiast to see how things are getting scarily orwellian over there |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by PivotTechno
...and some of you think things are going totalitarian in Canaduh: |
It's OK, the UK has always been about 20 years ahead of us in rampant assholism. We knew that. ;) |
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| Jayx1 |
our politicians look to england for nanny state ideas. The UK is the example to follow if you want to "democratically" control the masses.
Its quite sad
CCTV is also now used to fine people for littering, not putting dogs on a leash and other minor issues. Just imagine if toronto city hall got their hands on a system like this? Not that they arent trying to prime us for it already. |
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| cjones_636 |
This guy brings up a very good point! He clearly feels strongly enough about this to give up his job, and is gaining some media attention on at least got the message across to me.
Its similar to the late 90s studies on mdma where the wrong substance was used- but that one study was considered in all the youth education programs. |
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| PivotTechno |
Fookin' 'ell...
State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search
Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.
By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM GMT 10 Nov 2009
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.
Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.
They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.
Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.
However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.
It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.
The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.
The new law will increase the amount of personal data that can be obtained by officials through the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which is supposed to be used for fighting terrorism.
Although most private firms already hold details of every customer’s private calls and emails for their own business purposes, most only do so on an ad hoc basis and only for a period of several months.
The new rules, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme, will not only force communications companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit, effectively registering every online click.
While public authorities will not be able to view the contents of these emails or phone calls, they can see the internet addresses, dates, times and identify recipients of calls.
Firms involved in storing the data, including Orange, BT and Vodafone, will be reimbursed at a cost to the taxpayer of £2 billion over 10 years.
Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said he had fears about the abuse of the data. He said: “The big danger in all of this is 'mission creep’. This government keeps on introducing new powers to tackle terrorism and organised crime which end up being used for completely different purposes. We have to stop that from happening”.
David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, added: “Whilst this is no doubt necessary in pursuing terrorist suspects, the proposals are so intrusive that they should be subject to legal approval, and should not be available except in pursuit of the most serious crimes.”
The Information Commissioner’s Office also opposed the moves.
“The Information Commissioner believes that the case has yet to be made for the collection and processing of additional communications data for the population as a whole being relevant and not excessive,” a spokesman said.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, has criticised the amount the scheme will cost for what he said is effectively “state spying”.
He added yesterday: “It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous?”
Ministers said that they still have to work with the communications industry to find the correct way of framing the proposal in law — meaning it will not come before Parliament until after the general election. But the Home Office yesterday insisted it would push the legislation through. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, originally released a consultation paper in April.
Only 29 per cent of respondents supported the Government approach. Meanwhile the communications providers themselves questioned the cost of the scheme and whether it was even technically feasible.
John Yates, Britain’s head of anti-terrorism, has argued that the legislation is vital for his investigators.
David Hanson, the Home Office minister, said: “The consultation showed widespread recognition of the importance of communications data in protecting the public .. we will now work with communications service providers and others to develop these proposals, and aim to introduce necessary legislation as soon as possible.” |
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| PivotTechno |
Crazy - no one's even remotely disturbed by this?
Guess it won't matter until it hits closer to home. |
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| VERTiG0 |
| Journalists wait their entire careers to write headlines like that one |
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