Matthew, your comment “Tobacco, so far as I know, does not cause short-term mental and physical behaviour effects which may endanger those in the vicinity of its users.” in the context of driving. As a tobacco smoker of 30 years I am well qualified to point out a few problems with that statement:
- smoking can cause a “rush” which momentarily degrades concentration
- smoking can cause a feeling of giddiness/nausea especially when ill or at higher altitude
- fiddling with (looking for) cigarettes/lighter causes loss of attention
- dropping a lighted cigarette is particularly distracting especially into your lap or wearing shorts
- ditto with dropping hot cigarette ash
- the worst possible problem is when a cigarette sticks to your lip, your fingers slide down the cigarette plucking out the red hot tip which burns your fingers and then you in reflex drop the disintegrating embers into your lap (every smoker squirms when thinking of this one – it’s a bit like zipping your whatsit into your flies for a bloke – excruciatingly painful).

All of these things have happened to me while driving.

You didn’t answer the question “how using cannabis or ecstasy ‘endangers those in the vicinity of its users’”. You originally said “Tobacco, so far as I know, does not cause short-term mental and physical behaviour effects which may endanger those in the vicinity of its users.” but now claim “I mean SUCH THINGS as impaired motor skills, which may affect ability to drive safely”. That is a world of difference. In this example, you’re talking about driving (also SUCH THINGS is a weasel word/phrase). The drug has nothing to do with “danger to those in the vicinity of it’s users”, it’s the users ability to drive in different circumstances, which can vary from the under influence of drugs (legal and illegal) to hormones (time of month or PMT) to mood (say bereavement) to stress (too much on your mind) to lack of sleep to distraction (mobile phone or changing the CD) etc

I shouldn’t need to point this out. That’s where impatience creeps in and offence is taken.

Too bad I’m just “too thick” to understand that you know so much more than I do. I’m just a biochemical toxicologist but hey, you looked something up on Wikipedia, so just like Alan Johnson you know best.

The POLITICAL one-dimensional way of viewing drugs prevents ANY serious studies or research being undertaken on any illegal drug. Studies that have been undertaken are suppressed if they don’t produce results that support the political position on drugs as this whole sorry saga vividly demonstrates. In effect, nearly all studies are suppressed, funding withdrawn etc

“people who are causing a nuisance to others in the neighbourhood, those people are heavy users of cannabis” DOES NOT MEAN that “heavy users of cannabis are those people who are causing a nuisance to others in the neighbourhood”. The statement merely says that people who cause a nuisance happen to consume cannabis. It’s meaningless. They probably consume potatoes too. But the statement plants the implication in the mind of the public. It’s disinformation. FUD.

Johnson stood up and said that Nutt was sacked because he challenged government policy. SO WHAT? What is this government policy stuff that is sacrosanct? Why can’t it be challenged. This is supposed to be a democracy. I can’t ever remember anyone from the government ever debating government policy on drugs. This is a behind closed doors thing. So the government position comes down to this “Drug policy is as it is, it’s not up for debate. Accept it and shut up. We refuse to even justify our position on any basis (scientific or otherwise)”. I’m afraid that’s NOT ACCEPTABLE. I for one DEMAND a debate on drugs legislation. I DEMAND a justification of government drugs policy and above all I DEMAND change! There is too much at stake. Millions of peoples lives are being ruined by these policies. As I said in my first post . What can the public do to overthrow those responsible for prohibition? Who do you vote for? 40 years of these policies have achieved NOTHING except to criminalise millions of innocent people. At a HUGE cost. Those who are making vast profits from the illegal drugs industry are managing to prevent change – they learnt probably the lessons from alcohol prohibition – it’s a shame politicians didn’t. Or maybe many of these people are one and the same.

To highlight how politicians fail to apply rational method when they “investigate” an issue, especially drugs, has anyone noticed what the home affairs select committee is up to? In the words of the chairman of this committee “As part of our investigation into the cocaine trade we want to explore the human cost of drug taking, particularly on users and their families.”. To which end they invited the father of Amy Winehouse “to share with us research for a documentary on the damaging effects of drug abuse”. The session opened with the chairman asking about Amy’s cocaine addiction – her father then had to point out that her problem was heroine not cocaine. Great – MPs investigating cocaine talking to someone about heroine addiction! Says it all. Of course the government is actually positioning itself to reinforce it’s own policy on cocaine. Seems to me something like investigating the automobile trade by exploring the ‘human cost’ of motoring (accidents). My point is that here we have a group of politicians (unqualified laymen), pretending to investigate something that they have fixed views on. I wonder if THEY have read the WHO report on cocaine of 1994? (which says “Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use” and “That occasional cocaine use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social problems … a minority of people start using cocaine or related products, use casually for a short or long period, and suffer little or no negative consequences, even after years of use”). And of course they’ll be taking statements from some of those millions of UK citizens who have used cocaine and have had no problems with it whatsoever.

Many politicians are moving beyond contempt. Until they start behaving responsibly (honourable members they call themselves), they will NEVER gain public trust or respect.

Where in anything I wrote did I suggest any particular level of punishment? You appear to be supposing that simply because I do not say “cannabis is fine amd wiondeerful, let;s have it in sale in Tesco’s” means I must be saying it should have the level of illeaglity and punishment as it does now.

I am very tired of arguing with stupid binary people like yourself who are too thick to see that just because you don’t hold exactly to their point of view you must hold to the complete opposite. I have just slugged it out with some stupid illiberal so-called “libertarians” who are so stuck up themselves they think anyone who doesn’t agree with them isn’t even human. I can’t be bothered to go it out again with someone else who is clearly too pompous and stuck up to be worth trying to discuss things in a rational way with.

But just to answer your last point, I mean such things as impaired motor skills, which may affect ability to drive safely. If what I read in the Wiki article on these things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_cannabis is completely wrong, well, go and change the Wiki article and say it’s all wong – cannabis has no short-term effects on mental or physical judgements. That would be more productive than insulting me.

“So the one-dimensional way of viewing drugs purely in terms of long-term harm to their users is not the only issue to be considered here, though it seems to be the one Nutt’s report was based on.”

And as for this:

“Tobacco, so far as I know, does not cause short-term mental and physical behaviour effects which may endanger those in the vicinity of its users”

Laughable. You clearly have as little understanding of the effects of cannabis & ecstasy as Johnson, Brown or any of the other kneejerk drug warriors.

Please enlighten me as to how using cannabis or ecstasy ‘endangers those in the vicinity of its users’

With reference to the study, yes, it’s interesting. I can’t claim any great awareness of the literature on this issue, but it wasn’t hard to work from this lead to find enough material to get a feel for it in a few minutes. I would expect a Home Secretary, whose job it is to do this, to be much better informed than I am after looking at these things in my coffee break, and to have a reasonable enough understanding of the scientific technique to make whatever comment he has on that basis.

As I said, a politician has to be more of a generalist, and to look at these things in a wider context. A scientist will narrow down on a specific question and try to cut out all context to answer just that question, that’s the scientific technique. So if there’s a narrow question on the health effects of cannabis, that’s the question answered, and to sack the fellow because that’s what he did is really stupid.

As I have also said, however, in the wider context to say cannabis should be treated just like tobacco because it is “less dangerous” is to miss the context. If tobacco were newly introduced today, we would not legalise it, we have it because it has been legal and in widespread use and has a commercial industry supported by it. So just because another drug causes less deaths per user does not necessarily mean it should be treated in terms of legality as tobacco is. Tobacco, so far as I know, does not cause short-term mental and physical behaviour effects which may endanger those in the vicinity of its users. So the one-dimensional way of viewing drugs purely in terms of long-term harm to their users is not the only issue to be considered here, though it seems to be the one Nutt’s report was based on.

Whether deaths of illegal drug users are caused by impurities due to the way the drug is supplied rather than the drug itself is something a scientific study should control for. If the question is asked “is this drug safe?”, the scientific approach is just to do what can be done to take away the possibility that deaths are not caused by the drug itself. If the question is asked “are the deaths attributed to this drug due to impurities which come about because there isn’t the quality control framework there would be in a legal product”, then that’s a different question. A scientist should not be criticised for not answering a question that wasn’t asked, although a good scientist working in an area where there is a social context should be aware enough to raise those questions when answering the one which was asked.

A politician who is a generalist and has his or her feet on the ground may well be the one raising questions. In my case, from my own casework when I was a councillor, I do raise the question why is it that so often one has to deal with people who are causing a nuisance to others in the neighbourhood, those people are heavy users of cannabis. I can quite happily accept that there may well be plenty of quite trouble-free people who are heavy cannabis users, and I am not saying where there is the cause and effect. I just note it as an observation. If there are some who can handle it, some who can’t – fine, the same applies to alcohol. If the trouble-making is due entirely to the illegal nature of supply, fine too. If no statistically significant link can be found, fine too again, there are plenty of reasons why a false correlation may be observed. But I’d like these questions answered in a scientific way, and Alan Johnson’s behaviour shows just how not to do it.

But as he writes that “Ministers have constantly ignored the advice of experts… and pressed ahead with their own prejudices”, it would be worth checking that against his own record. Not on drugs, or prisons, about which he is generally sound, but on other policy issues that should also be informed by scientific advice.

Let’s take an environmental issue, for comparison – his previous portfolio.

Chris Huhne signed EDM 95 on whaling, calling on the Government to maintain the moratorium on commericial whaling and to undermine international legal prodecures by packing the International Whaling Commission with representatives from landlocked states to vote against Japan and Iceland.

Did Mr. Huhne and 28 other Lib Dem MPs base that on scientific advice?

No: The Whaling Commission’s own scientists have been demonstrating for years that Minke whales are abundant in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean, and that many depleted stocks of other whale species are recovering at encouraging rates. Which is to say at the very least that the resource basis for commericial whaling is broader than to support present exploitation.

But the political body, which makes the decisions, still refuses to set a catch level at anything other than zero.

It’s not the studies of scientists, but popular sentimental ideas about the charismatic mega-fauna of the ocean, that sets policy, and that sets Mr. Huhne’s agenda on this environmental issue.

I rather think that a lot of the people who are up in arms against the Government for not taking scientific advice in this case haven’t thought through which of their sacred cows might be slaughtered if the scientists had their way all the time. If scientists were in charge, then more delicious whales would be harpooned and eaten.

How many people condemning the Home Secretary on this board today would be clucking like outraged biddies at what science had wrought on the great mammals of the sea?

The one-liner about Chris Huhne is the only bit of relevance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails

Yet another police/tabloids/stupid politicians made up nonsense to justify the war on drugs, which you seem to have swallowed uncritically.

Have a look at the discussion here:

http://www.badscience.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12619

1. because it’s the only large-scale epidemiological study to date in which the marijuana-alone smokers subgroup is large enough to be statistically meaningful.
2. because Donald Tashkin, being a real scientist, accepts the evidence, despite having first demonstrated the presence of carcinogens in marijuana smoke & hypothesised (reasonably) that smoking marijuana is likely to cause cancers.

So despite having a personal investment in the ‘marijuana could cause cancer’ hypothesis, he has now changed his model, based on the evidence.

I cite the following concerns:

1.The Prison Trust has stated its alarm as a result of their trenchant research into the problem of the continual smuggling of drugs into HM Prisons and 70% new arrivals at prisons are found to be contaminated with an illegal drug.

2.The human link with drug addiction and dependency is closely associated with prostitution and the ability of international sex trafficking that has only been targeted on the margins by police `stings’ like Operations like Pentameter and Sapphire.

3.The Prison Trust has drawn attention in their important research, to the drugs harm to a disproportionately high number of those sentenced 90,000 now in prisons, making the requirement for a better and improvement framework for drugs rehab. long overdue and life threatening for those `addicts’.

4.Alcohol and tobacco are socially legal drugs are on the increase and causing grave problems besides the classes ABC drugs : but is it not time to hold a national enquiry into how to introduce more effective controls on the availability of drugs that clearly has risen over the last decade of this Government?

It is one matter to have a debate about the role and appropriate use of the expertise of the national drugs czar adviser but quite another to understand the real issue to develop better and more coherent laws and their social enforcement to stop innocent teenagers being predatory fodder, to the ruthless drugs suppliers.

I support Chrish Huhne`s assessment that the Government are looking for `Yes Men’ as their advisers.

It is patently clear that the Prof. David Nutt and colleagues should be free to speak out on their opinions on all areas of drugs abuse and make proposals on how to enforce controls as part of their remit.

I believe that the Prof. Nutt is honourable and is only concerned with offering the best advice in how this Government should have done much better on drugs control measures, especially to prevent access of nefarious drugs suppliers and traffickers to young persons.

Marijuana Use and the Risk of Lung and Upper
Aerodigestive Tract Cancers: Results of a
Population-Based Case-Control Study

Cancer
Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(10):1829–34

Thanks. I have checked this on Google scholar, the link is:

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/15/10/1829.full

from this one may look at papers which reference it, and papers it references.

It is clear from this that there is much research to be done to reach conclusive answers, so you were perhaps a little misleading in picking out one study which most supports what one point of view.