It must be one of the must frustrating feelings in the world to be at the top of your profession, equipped with serious intellectual scientific understandings, put into a position of authority and then completely and utterly ignored.

I’m talking about a gentleman called Professor David Nutt who heads the committee that advises the home office on drug classification.

Take a look at the story reported here where the gentleman is quoted verbatim words that have come out of his mouth about his understanding of the classification of drugs within the UK.

So from that article the advisory council that tells the HO findings from the proven scientific tests they have conducted, in a controlled environment:

Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than cannabis and ecstasy
Ecstasy is currently rated as a class A drug even though his scientific feelings are that it is no more dangerous than riding a horse
Nutt argues the distinction drawn between the harm caused by illegal and legal drugs is moral and political, not scientific.

I couldn’t agree more to be honest.

It’s high fucking time that the HO took notice of the scientists they employ and altered the laws accordingly. This is a subject I am not exactly passionate about, but it does get my fucking goat when people pay scientists to find the answers to important questions, then completely fucking ignore them because some idiot in power actively chooses to ignore the scientific evidence and act purely and selfishly on their own morals, whatever they may be.

I remember my mother’s reaction and colleagues reaction when they learnt I smoked a bit of weed in university and on the odd occasion after leaving. It ranged from disgust, sheer terror, disappointment and so on, totally unjustified reactions to the fact that it was weed which had a large stigma attached to it.

The amusing thing though is people openly joke with their mates about how wasted they might have got on a night out, to the point of not being able to see, getting into fights etc. Personally I’d much rather be legally allowed to sit in my own home with a joint, laughing my ass off at comedy and causing harm to nobody than mixing with a bunch of pricks in town off their nut on beer getting into fights, vandalising property.

Another thing that amuses me slightly, the complete and utter lack of tying together the fact that alcohol is actually a drug, as well as tobacco. Do you smoke? Yes/No. Do you drink? Yes/No. Do you do drugs? Yes/No? Erm… surely if you’ve just answered yes to smoking or drinking you are actively admitting taking drugs? They ARE drugs, they’re just legal, plain and simple, someone in authority somewhere down the line has turned around and said “hey we can tax this, lets legalise it”.

It might be worth a read into exactly why this substance was banned in the US… and it’s quite an interesting read as their founding fathers and early presidential members encouraged the cultivation of Hemp, mostly for it’s fibres and paper producing properties. See if you can work out why it got banned with hideous penalties enforced on the poor sod smoking a joint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States

Anyway, the poor bastard Professor Nutt must literally sit at work wondering why he bothers.
The sheer notion of some fucking idiot (Jacqui Smith) being able to over rule a top scientific Home Office appointed advisor, purely because she wanted to, off the back of her own limited understanding and morals is a disgrace and should not be allowed to happen. Ever.