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February 11 Should ecstasy be downgraded?
(Image © PA)
What’s happening?
Ecstasy, the drug synonymous with Britain’s dance club culture, should be downgraded from class A to class B, the government’s drug advisers will say today in a long-awaited report into the associated health risks. That would put ecstasy in the same category as cannabis, but the government says it will ignore the advice – as it did when it upgraded cannabis last month.
What are people saying? Professor David Nutt, head of the Home Office’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), wrote in January’s Journal of Psychopharmacology that taking ecstasy is “no more dangerous than riding a horse” or other risky activities. In response, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday accused him of trivialising the dangers of drugs and a Home Office spokesman told ITN: “Ecstasy can and does kill unpredictably; there is no such thing as a 'safe dose'. The government firmly believes that ecstasy should remain a Class A drug.” Deaths linked to the drug have trebled since the 1990s - from 10 per year to 30.
Why should we give a damn?
Professor Nutt has defended his comments, telling the Daily Telegraph: “The point was to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life.” The critical question, he says, is “why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others, such as drug use.” In other words, if pursuits such as motorcycling, horse riding and alcohol kill more people than illicit drugs, why aren’t we banning those instead?
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