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GUARDIAN Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:21:00 GMT
Eric Carlin quits Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, saying politicians are interfering in its decisions
Another adviser to the government on drugs policy has resigned over claims of political interference.
Carlin, 47, who has a long background in drug advice charities, is the seventh member of the ACMD to step down since the controversial sacking of its chairman, Professor David Nutt, last October. Nutt had criticised the government for rejecting recommendations on the classification of cannabis and ecstasy.
In his letter, Carlin said he decided to stay on after Nutt's departure to see whether the ACMD could still do some good work but now had "no confidence that this will now happen".
The focus on mephedrone had been at the expense of other issues, he said, particularly prevention and work with young people.
"We need to review our entire approach to drugs, dumping the idea that legally sanctioned punishments for drug users should constitute a main part of the armoury in helping to solve our country's drug problems. We need to stop harming people who need help and support.
"As well as being extremely unhappy with how the ACMD operates, I am not prepared to continue to be part of a body which, as its main activity, works to facilitate the potential criminalisation of increasing numbers of young people."
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GUARDIAN Sun, 01 Nov 2009
The home secretary faces mass resignations from the government's drug advisory body over his decision to force out its chairman, who accused ministers of distorting scientific evidence on cannabis.
Two members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned todayin protest at Alan Johnson's treatment of Professor David Nutt. Another member told the Guardian that the experts were "planning collective action" against Johnson, adding: "Everybody is devastated. We're all considering our positions."
Nutt said today that there was "no future" for the council in its present form and it is thought the group's members may use a meeting next Monday to announce a mass resignation.
He repeated his familiar view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause and pointed out that alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. Alcohol should come fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco should rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, he said. He also argued that smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness.
The Lib Dem science spokesman, Dr Evan Harris MP, who spoke to scientists over the weekend, accused Johnson of "political thuggery". He said the home secretary's actions could create a crisis in government policy-making if the drugs advisory panel was left unable to function or if experts on other panels resigned.
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TIMESONLINE Sun, 01 Nov 2009
Two members of the official body advising the Government on drugs have
resigned in protest at the sacking of its chairman in a row over the harm
caused by cannabis.
Dr Les King, a chemist, quit the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and said that the Home Secretary had
denied the chairman’s right to free speech when he sacked him.
He was followed by Marion Walker, a pharmacist, who is clinical director with
the substance misuse service at the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation
Trust.
Professor David Nutt, chairman of the council, was dismissed after saying that
cannabis was less harmful than alcohol or nicotine and had been reclassified
for political reasons.
Dr King, who became a full member of the council last year, said that the
Government’s attitude to the panel had been shifting in recent years and
Home Secretaries now had a “pre-defined political agenda” when they asked
for its expert advice.
“It’s being asked to rubber stamp a pre-determined position,” he said. “If
sufficient members do resign, the committee will no longer be able to
operate.”
Dr King said he believed that the panel needed to become “free from government
interference” in the same way as the National Institute for Health and
Clinical Excellence (NICE), the organisation that advises on medicines and
clinical practice.
“I don’t see why drugs can’t be done the same. It can be totally
depoliticised. It’s all about harm. It’s a scientific issue,” he said.
Dr King, a former head of the Drugs Intelligence Unit of the Forensic Science
Service, has been a member of the 31-strong council since 2008.
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TIMESONLINE Sat, 31 Oct 2009
The UK’s drugs czar, who was sacked for publically criticising government
policy, has branded Gordon Brown and his cabinet "irrational Luddites".
Professor David Nutt, who was dismissed as chairman of the Advisory Council on
the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) yesterday after he claimed that illegal drugs
such as cannabis and ecstasy are less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, is
warning that more senior scientific advisors are set to walk out over the
row over drug classification.
He was asked to resign by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who claimed he has "lost
confidence" in the expert’s political impartiality.
Today, Professor Nutt claimed Gordon Brown’s government was alienating
themselves from the scientific community appointed to advise them.
He said: "Gordon Brown makes completely irrational statements about
cannabis being 'lethal', which it is not.
“He is the first Prime Minister, this is the first Government, that has ever
in the history of the Misuse of Drugs Act gone against the advice of its
scientific panel.
“And then it did it again with ecstasy, and I have to say, it’s not about [me]
overstepping the line, it’s about the Government overstepping the line.
“They are making scientific decisions before they’ve even consulted with their
experts.”
Professor Nutt, who has been a vocal critic of the Government’s
reclassification of cannabis from Class C back to Class B, claims that many
of the other 30 members of the drugs advisory council could also be set to
resign.
“I know that my committee was very, very upset by the attitude the Prime
Minister took over cannabis. We actually formally wrote to him to complain
about it.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them stepped down. Maybe all of them will.
I'm not prepared to mislead the public about the harmfulness of drugs like
cannabis and ecstasy.
"I think most scientists will see this as a further example of the
Luddite attitude of this Government, and possible future governments.”
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BLOGSPOT Thu 25 Sep 08
The headlines in the Finnish Press (below) discuss a shooting rampage by an 18-year old High School student, Pekka-Eric Auvinen. Before killing six students, the head teacher and a nurse, and turning the gun on himself, Auvinen indicated that he "ate SSRI antidepressants" which, he said, made him feel "aggressive."
Auvinen died.
"Stunned and grieving, some Europeans have taken to re-examining their societies, fretting that they have lost the communal warmth that once prevailed outside large cities.
Instead, they fear they are leaving their frailest citizens feeling isolated in an indifferent, money-driven marketplace, which is widely described as an American pathology spreading with globalization."
Another "American pathology spreading with globalization" is the irresponsible use of psychotropic drugs--such as the SSRI antidepressants and antipsychotics--that both sweep away self-regulating internal inhibitions while triggering explosive acts of violence and murderous behavior! See astonishing list: http://www.ssristories.com/index.phpBut for the press to report honestly about the documented dangers posed by these widely prescribed psychoactive drugs might undercut Big Pharma's aggressive "money-driven" marketing--and its advertising expenditures in the news media.
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BBC Fri, 18 Jan 2008
At Kandahar's Arab cemetery, victims of the US "war on terror" are revered by many as shaheed (martyrs) and their graves are believed to possess miraculous powers.
Each day, hundreds of sick people visit the graves of more than 70 Arab and other foreign fighters and their family members who were killed in US bombing in the southern Afghan city in late 2001.
People started seeing them as miracle workers, healers and intercessors for others before God.
Many believe that these foreigners were "innocent" people who "died for Islam" when the US and others sent troops to Afghanistan after the attacks of 11 September, 2001.
For many, these graves are holy, and touching them will cure illnesses.
In the first couple of years, thousands of people visited the cemetery daily.
Surprised by the response, local authorities sent armed policemen to discourage people from visiting.
But the cemetery's fame has reached many remote areas of Afghanistan and even the border areas of neighbouring Pakistan.
"People get cured here, that is why they come to the cemetery," says Samad, one young visitor.
Many people talk about miracles that have happened in the cemetery.
Some say many sick people who had lost all hope of recovery were miraculously cured within moments of their first visit.
"Several paralysed people have left the cemetery walking on their own two feet," says Sangeena.
The "cure" is simple - each visitor takes a pinch of salt from one of the many small bowls and eats it. It is believed that the salt has a special connection with the dead and will cure any illness.
Gul Khan, a university graduate, says the cemetery's popularity also has to do with the fact that most people are poor and have little or no access to health facilities.
"Generally people in this area believe in such things. Once the fame of a shrine or a person having 'miraculous powers' spreads, then more and more people are attracted to that."
Since the Soviet invasion in 1979, fighting has destroyed much of Afghanistan's basic infrastructure.
Post-Taleban reconstruction has made little or no impact in many remote areas.
In a country with high unemployment and low literacy rates, it does not seem surprising that shrines are still the only hope for many sick and needy people.
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PRISONPLANET Wed, 16 Jan 2008
The establishment media will have to find a new tactic with which to ridicule those who oppose the fluoridation of water after a major new Scientific American report concluded that "Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift" as new evidence emerges of the poison's link to disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ.
"Today almost 60 percent of the U.S. population drinks fluoridated water, including residents of 46 of the nation’s 50 largest cities," reports Scientific American's Dan Fagin.
Fagin is an award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.
"Outside the U.S., fluoridation has spread to Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries. Critics of the practice have generally been dismissed as gadflies or zealots by mainstream researchers and public health agencies in those countries as well as the U.S. (In other nations, however, water fluoridation is rare and controversial.)"
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XINHUANET Fri, 17 Aug 2007 02:35:35 GMT
Thirty-one percent of high school students in U.S. -- more than 4 million -- see drug dealing, illegal drug use or students high or drunk at least once a week on their school grounds, said a survey quoted by media reports Friday.
Nine percent of middle school students, or more than 1 million, at least once a week see classmates engaging in drug-related activity at school, the survey found.
The results also show that since 2002, the proportion of students who attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold has soared 39 percent for high school students and 63 percent for those in middle school.
From 2006 to 2007, the proportion jumped 20 percent for high school students and 35 percent for middle school students, according to the survey.
Joseph Califano, chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University in U.S. warned that too many U.S. schools have become open drug bazaars for teens.
The survey shows that "our nation's youth are drenched in a culture where drug and alcohol abuse are commonplace and that drug-infested schools encourage the idea that it's cool to get high and drunk," Califano said in a statement.
"Parents should wake up to this reality ... and do something about it," he said.
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