THE Government's chief adviser on drugs caused fury last night by claiming booze and fags are more dangerous than LSD.
Professor David Nutt also said the risk of taking ecstasy was no worse than riding a horse - and blasted the decision to upgrade cannabis to a class B drug.
He called for all drugs to be ranked by a "harm" index - with cocaine, heroin, barbiturates and methadone the only ones more harmful than alcohol.
Tobacco would rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy.
Professor Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said smoking cannabis created only a "small risk" of psychotic illness.
Professor Nutt also claimed experts who want to downgrade ecstasy from class A to B had "won the intellectual argument".
He made his claims in a lecture and briefing paper for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London.
He said: "No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is scale." He attacked the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs.
Shadow Home Office Minister James Brokenshire said: "Rather than adding clarity to the debate on drug classification, his comments will add confusion."
A Home Office spokesman said: "Professor Nutt's views are his own.
sometimes, governments forget that they're supposed to control the people, not serve them. if your aim is to control, you simply can't hire intelligent, honest, educated people to file potentially controversial posts.
ReplyDeletei mean, who knew that he would go against the party line in favour of reality?!