Context from the BBC article: “Prof Nutt was sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson last October after publicly disagreeing with the government’s decision to re-classify cannabis as a Class B drug and not to downgrade ecstasy.”

“The romantic comedy “It’s Complicated” arrived at the multiplex on Friday complete with an R rating, ranking it in the same category as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Basic Instinct” in the eyes of the Motion Picture Association of America.”

The article goes on to say that there is no violence and the bedroom scenes are decidedly tame. The only real reason it’s R-rated is due to the marijuana use, and apparently this is making some conservative segments of America happy with the ratings board for a change:

Dan Isett, director of public policy for the Parents Television Council, which also monitors movies, said “It’s Complicated” was a “rare instance” of the board getting a rating correct.
“The last I checked, smoking pot was still illegal, illicit behavior,” he said. “Too often material gets rated lower than it should be.”

Of course, Mr. Isett ignores that activities like physical assault and shooting people are also illegal, but that they routinely show up in PG-13 movies, and I’d wager such an act of violence causes more harm to society than smoking pot.

Interesting points:

Forbes magazine put Mexican drug lord Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman as No. 401 on the world’s list of billionaires.

Imagine if some of that profit went towards treating drug use as a health issue?

Mexico’s deputy agriculture minister, Jeffrey Jones, told some of the country’s leading farmers that they could learn a thing or two from Mexican drug traffickers. “It’s a sector that has learned to identify markets and create the logistics to reach them,” he said. Days later, Mr. Jones was forced to resign. “He may be right,” one top Mexican official confided, “but you can’t say things like that publicly.”

It seems Prof. Nutt isn’t the only one being sacked for being rational about the drug debate.

Oh, and by the way, if you think it’s just those of us that can responsibly use drugs that are after a lift of prohibition, think again. The very same people who’ve been on the front-line of the war against drugs are saying the same thing.

Update: It seems Joaquin Guzman is also the #41 most powerful person. Would he still be the world’s most powerful person and the USA’s most wanted man if it wasn’t for prohibition?

“Content defined under the National Classification Scheme as Refused Classification includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.”

Notice the reference to content that’s related to drug use. Do you think Erowid will be filtered? Given that there is a plethora of drug information which includes chemical synthesis, I wouldn’t be surprised. Especially since Australia has in the past been one of the few countries that refused classification of Fallout 3 due to it depicting drug use. This seems strange because plenty of games have power-ups (mushrooms from Mario Brothers anyone?), perhaps the mistake Fallout 3 made was to depict this as actually have a realistic method of implementing these power ups? And surely the impacts of negative consequence and addiction in the game probably scared the censors too, since it’d be terrible thing for people to be forewarned of the potential dangers of drug use right?

Now the Australian government can prevent the public from doing their own research about drugs, and they won’t have to be pestered by the public finding out the relative safety of illegal substances versus alcohol in society. Instead, they can feed people whatever misinformation they like.

Now, it’s much easier to put a variety of different substances into a pill than it is to illegally import MDMA, and the vast majority of pills available on the market today are adulterated with other things. The problem here is that there is no longer an alternative, and people are now dealing solely with this unregulated market. Anyone who thinks the banning of BZP has stopped people seeking substances is delusional. As predicted, it’s simply created a situation where there’s a demand for a scarce substance, all of the advantages are in favour of the supplier, and people are taking what they can get from people for whom there is absolutely no comeback for supplying goods that are ‘not as advertised.’

So what can be done about this situation?

Well, if this were a legal market, the government would step in under the Consumer Guarantees Act, or would regulate the market in the interest of safety. But this is not a legal market, the majority of people think that drugs are bad and therefore anyone who gets hurt obviously deserves it, and the government is afraid of taking steps to make people safer when breaking the law, because it will mean they are seen as ‘encouraging’ drug use. So the government will do squat to ensure the safety of users.

That leaves it up to the users to ensure their own safety as much as they can. This is no mean task. How does one know, when purchasing a substance, that its contents are the relatively safe MDMA, and not Ajax (as stated in the article), some other chemical such as BZP or 2CB, or even Panadol?

Well, according to this report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, there are three useful ways of checking the contents, and therefore the safety, of pills sold as ecstasy: pill reports, colour reagent testing, and chromatography. All of these are available in New Zealand, although chromatography is not as available as it seems to be in Europe (see the section of the report relating to ’15 minute’ chromatography tests at dance parties). Chromatography is still a lab-based test, which takes time and is therefore not particularly useful to a user who wants to know what’s in their pill before they take it.

So that leaves us with pill reports and reagent testing. Pill reports are definitely useful in terms of informing people of ‘bad’ pills, but an inherent problem with pill reports has arisen in the last year – duplicate batches. A type of pill can be reported as ‘good’, and sometimes these pills have even been chromatography tested to contain MDMA – and immediately the colour and stamp of the pill is copied as someone cashes in on the reputation of the ‘good’ pills. The user has no way of knowing from the reports which type they have, and therefore can’t use reports as a definitive guide as to the safety of their substance.

Enter the testing kits. Erowid has a comprehensive FAQ regarding Marquis, one of the more common kits available (yes, these are available in New Zealand). A word of warning is included here. It’s true, Marquis will not identify MDMA in a pill, only the possible presence of MDMA-like substances. Nor will it indicate the amount of the substance contained in the pill. Therefore, it would be very unwise to use Marquis to ‘guarantee’ that a pill contains MDMA. However, what it can do effectively, is identify pills that do not contain MDMA, and also the presence of adulterants. Apparently BZP is very easy to identify using Marquis.

So hypothetically, a user could test a pill with a reagent kit, and find out that their pill doesn’t contain MDMA, or may contain MDMA but also has something suspect in it. What now? Well, the user then has to make a decision about their own safety. If they have bought the pill there is the option not to take it. The sensible option would be to send the pill to the testing lab (yes, New Zealand has one) so that it may be analysed using chromatography and others warned of the contents. If the user has not bought the pill but is testing for the purpose of buying, they have the option to not buy the pill.

This is an unregulated market. Yes that’s right, the wet dream of neoliberals everywhere. In basic economic terms it’s a supplier’s market because of the scarcity/demand thing, and this is leading to charlatans making profits from those desperate to purchase, while disregarding the safety of their customers. Sooner or later there will be a death, and those who think drugs are bad will be quick to blame the users and use it as justification to continue with the draconian system that has created the unsafe market in the first place. The only way to change this situation is to be willing to not make the purchase if the product is not of the quality the purchaser expects.

I recommend that anyone with an interest in the quality of pills sold as ecstasy, and therefore the safety of those using these pills, buy a testing kit and use it to identify adulterated pills and those not containing MDMA, and refuse to purchase anything that is not as advertised. Furthermore, refusing to purchase any further releases from the people who supplied those dangerous pills will send a message that users do care about their own safety, and will not allow a situation where they are being fleeced and their lives put at risk. I repeat, the government is not going to help in this situation, it is up to those who suffer the consequences of their decisions to keep themselves safe.

And if a pill does appear to contain an MDMA-like substance? That is still no guarantee that it’s safe to take it. Chromatography is the only effective way of identifying the contents of a pill. Therefore, the more pills that get donated to labs for testing, the better, the more information makes it back to the users.

Of course, to not take the pill or to walk away from a purchase takes willpower. To donate a pill for lab testing takes willpower too. I’d like to suggest that anyone who finds themselves unable to do these things after discovering that their pill contains unidentified substances that are not MDMA, might want to consider their drug use as a whole in the context of the risks they are prepared to take, and consider the potential consequences of a bad decision made for the sake of a fun night out.

“Why do they think prohibition of illicit drugs will work any better?”

So what’s the problem with that statement? Well, it implies that prohibition is a new thing by putting it in a future tense – ‘will work’? How about being realistic and saying ‘didn’t work’ or ‘hasn’t worked’? I know, semantics. But let’s have a look at some dates* around prohibition of some substances:

Opiates and cocaine – Harrison Narcotics Act 1914 – still prohibited.

LSD 1965 through to 1970 – still prohibited.

Cannabis 1911 (South Africa) through to 1935 (USA) – still prohibited.

Psilocybin 1921 (Belgium) through to 2008 (Finland) – it should be noted that psilocybin mushrooms are not prohibited under international law, but they are listed as Schedule I under the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances -still prohibited in most countries.

MDMA 1985 (USA followed by UN) – still prohibited.

Amphetamine 1971 (Controlled Substances Act USA, followed by UN) – still prohibited.

Alcohol – 1919 – repeal of prohibition in 1933 when it was realised that prohibition of alcohol increased criminal activity and public harm.

I think that’s a pretty long and comprehensive history of prohibition of drugs. Some of them have been prohibited since before alcohol was. It only took 14 years for the harms associated with alcohol prohibition to become apparent enough to change the law. Yet with other drugs, it’s been allowed to go on, and on, and on.

Why does anyone think prohibition of other drugs has been any different from prohibition of alcohol? This report details some of the issues around prohibited drugs, and points out that they are the same issues that were encountered with the prohibition of alcohol. For those who don’t want to read the whole report, please at least read this page, which makes policy recommendations for dealing with illegal drugs, the first of which is recognition that prohibition doesn’t work.

Then have a look at the date at the top. Yes, that’s right – this report was made in 1972. Even back then it was recognised that prohibition was a failure – and why not? There’s a long and rich history of crime, death and addiction to draw on for evidence. Yet these recommendations have been resoundingly ignored by governments and the UN for nearly 40 years.

To me, this makes no sense. It makes no sense to go on considering prohibition in any kind of future tense, because in order to be realistic about drugs, it shouldn’t even be considered as an option any more – and there’s ample history to back that statement up. There is no place in the present world for dithering about whether or not prohibition ‘will work’ or ‘is working’ – it didn’t. It hasn’t. Time for a new approach that actually has a future.

* There are no references attached to these dates as the information is in the public domain and simple enough to find for anyone interested.

It could happen, says an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. And maybe it should. Everyone recognizes the illegitimacy of chemically enhanced academic performance but these drugs will be near impossible to ban.

Illegitimacy? If someone contributes to a field of science and advances our understanding, but all of a sudden we realise they were taking a nootropic substance, does that make their research invalid? Unlike most sport, science and technology isn’t a game (… even if it sometimes feels like it for me!), so throwing in these assertions is really just sloppy reporting and showing how deeply the ingrained “drugs are bad” mantra as penetrated many facets of our society.

In fact, why not look at one the most prolific mathematicians of all time: Paul Erdős. Erdős was known to take amphetamines, and once his friend Ron Graham expressed concerned and bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.

Erdős won the bet, but complained during his abstinence that mathematics had been set back by a month: “Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper.” After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine habit. (Book reference, via Wikipedia)

Does this long-term habit of taking a stimulant mean that a large portion of mathematical theory is now invalid? No, no it doesn’t.

One of the problems in drug reform debates is the ‘unknown quantity’ factor – it’s never been tried, and predictions range from “OMG total chaos!” to “Less health problems, more money for government = WIN!” and everything in between. This book offers some answers to the question “What could a post-prohibition regime look like?” – and explores regulation models along with the principles and rationale for them.

I strongly suggest downloading and reading this book, along with their other two major publications, Tools For The Debate and After the War On Drugs: Options For Control.

Transform UK successfully move beyond emotive ideology and reframe the argument in a rational way. Recommended reading.

The gist of the article is that more kids have been caught with drugs in schools in New Zealand (particularly cannabis) than ever before, police having brought in sniffer dogs and drug testing.

Logic says that bringing in sniffer dogs and drug testing is likely to catch more people with drugs than just guessing, which is what they were doing before. Yet, for some reason the fact that more people have been caught seems to be evidence of some kind of drug epidemic. I’m not sure I agree with the reasoning here.

I suggest that the number of kids with drugs in school has probably increased along with the number of people using drugs in wider society,* and that catching more people is a sign of nothing other than they’ve got better at catching them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone the use of drugs in children. I think anyone using drugs (including the legal ones such as caffeine and alcohol) before their brain, personality and identity has finished developing is taking a gamble with their future mental health, never mind the obvious difficulties associated with being stoned while trying to learn. All drug taking is risky, but kids aren’t equipped to assess those risks accurately.

However, prohibition is obviously not stopping them. It’s good to see some schools using ‘alternative action contracts’ – which involve some drug testing, some community work, some study into the use and abuse of their drug of choice, and at least some counselling. But most schools seem to be taking a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach, which kicks kids out (read: marginalises them) for using drugs, and places drugs squarely on the ‘crime’ side of the fence.

“Fair enough,” you say, “Drug use is a crime.” And you’re right. But sadly, giving the kid a bad school record so that the only schools that will take them are those that desperately need students, labelling them ‘druggie’ at an early age and then walking away going “Hey, we got rid of the deviant element, we’ve done our job, the kiddies are safe from these criminals” does not actually address any of the reasons these kids are using drugs in the first place.

Drugs are a health issue. They affect mental, physical and social health if abused. Those kids smoking drugs in the playground are not invading anyone else’s human rights, hurting others or stealing – where is the victim of this crime?. The only reason what they are doing is a crime is because legislation has made it so – but the effects on their health and learning are measurable and tangible. The victim of this crime is the same person as the perpetrator – yet the system continues to punish them as criminals instead of offering them help as victims.

To the schools, I suggest that continuing to condone punitive approaches to dealing with drug users is going to continue to achieve the same result – which is to discourage nobody, marginalise those who get caught, and set young people against those who would be educating them at an early age. Even the alternative contracts are seen by youth aid workers as ‘fair punishment’ – not ‘offering help’ or ‘addressing the issue’. It’s all about punishing people for wrongdoing.

Because if people do wrong, they’re bad people, right? And if they’re bad people, we don’t have to care about helping them because they don’t deserve it, right? It’s so much easier that way.

Schools are (in part) the places where people’s attitudes are formed. I wonder how many people caught up in this sniffer-dog, drug-test, expulsion/punishment situation will go on to have a friendly and cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship with society?

* Drug uptake has consistently increased under prohibition.

I don’t think I need to say much here at all, but I’d like to point interested people to places where information is available. I’ve been watching the story unfold and have found it interesting to watch the government and popular press go into damage control mode. There have been some blatant attempts to cast doubt* on the science behind the paper that got him sacked.

I think probably the funniest bit was from the Home Office: “The home secretary expressed surprise and disappointment over Professor Nutt’s comments which damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs.”

So, by presenting the scientific evidence to the public directly, Prof Nutt was damaging the clear message the government gives the public? Which clear message is that then? This one? (FRANK – which is, frankly, laughable). Or do they mean Gordon Brown saying that skunk is lethal? Because that’s such a clear message to all the people who’ve smoked it and not died. Obviously giving people facts is sullying this clear message. Oh and by the way, England – ‘new’ skunk has been around in Unzud since the mid-90s. Just saying.

I think these two articles are worth reading even if you don’t read anything else:

Bad Science on the Nutt Sack Affair.

BBC article on the politics around the sacking.

Anyway, if you think the whole Nutt thing is crazy like a crazy thing, there are a couple of things you can do: Join the Facebook group (25,000 as at today – that’s 20,000 since I joined it). Facebook doesn’t change anything but it does bring together a large group of similar-minded people, create networks and provide information as it comes to hand. And Sign the petition. You can do this if you’re an expatriate so you don’t have to be living in England. There are 5,000 signatures on it currently. Even if it doesn’t get Nutt reinstated, the response to this sacking will make governments worldwide aware that people are not just sitting there letting the wool be pulled over their eyes by politicians who would feed us misinformation about things that affect our health.

Because for once, it’s not just the folks with an interest in drug policy who are taking notice.

* Daily Mail. Nuff said.