Out of their minds - on delusion

Professor David Nutt, the Government's chief drug adviser, was sacked yesterday after claiming ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol. Prof. Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs,  attacked what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from other, illegal, drugs.
He accused former home secretary Jacqui Smith, who reclassified cannabis, of "distorting and devaluing" scientific research. Prof Nutt said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness. All drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, should be ranked by a "harm" index, he said, with alcohol coming fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates, and methadone.

"Tobacco should rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy", he said and he  repeated his claim that the risks of taking ecstasy are no worse than riding a horse.
Ms Smith's decision to reclassify cannabis as a "precautionary step" sent mixed messages and undermined public faith in Government science, he said.
He added: "I think we have to accept young people like to experiment - with drugs and other potentially harmful activities - and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives. We therefore have to provide more accurate and credible information. If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you are probably wrong."

The Government, of course, fearful of the headlines which the alcoholic correspondents of the tabloids would devise during their cocaine-sniffing seminars, immediately sacked their adviser for telling the truth.

We need to be very clear about this. Professor Nutt was sacked for telling the truth about drugs and blowing out of the water the facile mythologies about drugs and  children and experimentation. Sadly, despite Cameron having taken drugs himself in his younger days, it's doubtful if anything would change under a Tory government, as their pomposity and self-righteousness exceeds even that of the Government's.
We live in a society in which our elected representatives operate in secrecy, fiddle their expenses, obscure the truth, defy logic, react to newspaper headlines instead of logic and reason and actually fail to see why they should reform themselves or even appreciate how disillusioned the public is becoming.  From local councils up to Westminster the story's the same: secrecy, stupidity and selfishness  on a massive scale, yet we seem to accept it.  Perhaps we deserve the rulers we get.