Equasy: An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harm

[Ali Admin]

Picked up from a tweet, this is an interesting article by Professor David Nutt, who seems to be doing a good job of discrediting the govt and exposing its policy based evidence culture.

Equasy: An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms [opens PDF]

[Loubeeloo]

...and now a demonstration of what happens to government paid 'experts' when they don't produce the 'evidence' the government wants...

BBC's home editor Mark Easton comments on

a collision between science and politics

included is the letter from Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, which asserts to Professor Nutt that...

It is important that the government's messages on drugs are clear and that as an advisor you do nothing to undermine public understanding of them...

i cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy...

...so just like the government's messages on everything really. Why let facts get in the way of yet another piece of policy based 'evidence' about any issue the government wants to legislate on, after all we can't have people being confused with the truth now can we...

Good for Professor Nutt showing that he actually has a pair... unlike Mr.Balls' pet minion the BadMan. Sad to see however that THIS issue about recreational drugs has raised more temperatures in the media about scientific rigor & government policy making, than their slapdash statistical attack on Home Ed has... meh!

devaluing and distorting evidence

indeedy they do!

[Loubeeloo]

may i stand corrected by myself... David Nutt was in fact unpaid chair of the Home Office’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs...

[Ali Admin]

Originally Posted by Loubeeloo

may i stand corrected by myself... David Nutt was in fact unpaid chair of the Home Office’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs...

Unlike Badman and Atkinson who are both paid govt stooges.

Nutt has been seriously embarrassing the ex postman Home Secretary who fired him. Maybe Alan Johnson delivered the dismissal letter personally since his postie mates are currently on strike?

[Diane]

Maybe we could ask the good doctor what he thinks of the statistics in Badder's review?

Diane
http://www.threedegreesoffreedom.blogspot.com

[Loubeeloo]

looks like Mr.Nutt's friends at the 'Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' are rallying behind him... BBC News Article
along with other influential buddies...

Lord Winston, professor of science and society at Imperial College London, said: "I think that if governments appoint expert advice they shouldn't dismiss it so lightly. I think it shows a rather poor understanding of the value of science."

of course some 'experts' are more 'expert' than others.... & more scientific... but as we know the 'truth' or 'evidence' is not part of the Governments agenda on all sorts of issues.

Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat science spokesman, said: "I fear there will be many more resignations unless the government acts to restore confidence among its independent scientific advisers, upon which it relies for advice on matters from nuclear safety to childhood vaccination.
"If the ACMD - which was set up by an Act of Parliament - becomes unable to function or if advisers on other committees quit, then this act of crass political thuggery by the home secretary will have created a crisis in government policy-making."

"...act of crass political thuggery"?... "what again, really?!?"

[Loubeeloo]

Talking politics by Ian Dunt

It robs people of their personal freedom, lies to the public, and operates on a level of dogma and calculation rather than ethics or harm reduction.

But it does have its upside. It gives many British youths their first lesson in British government: don't believe anything they tell you.

[Diane]

I left a comment:

"Home educators know that politicians lie. We found out about it when they commissioned a Mr. Badman to produce a report which says that home educators should be licenced and monitored because they are likely to abuse their children. However, statisticians have checked the 'statistics' obtained from the local authorities and found them to be total rubbish. So, because of the Labour Party's lies, our homes may be invaded by LA personnel and we will be presumed guilty of child abuse. Rather ironic considering a lot of us took our children out of abusive schools. The Labour Party won't be happy until they are parenting and real parents are mere baby machines. And that will be SO good for the children".