Our new advisory committee is not a rival to the government's, but I believe that scientific advice must be independent of politics

David Nutt

guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 January 2010 16.39 GMT

Article history

After the politics of recent months, it was great to go to the Science Media Centre today to announce the launch of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD).

I set up the committee because I feel passionately that drugs policy needs to be based on the best available scientific evidence. Crucially, the production and dissemination of this scientific evidence needs to be entirely independent of political influence.

Our committee has funding for an initial two- to three-year period. We have the support of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, which will be helping us run the committee. Most important of all, the committee will have some of the top scientific experts in the country. Over time, the committee will become the key independent scientific body on drugs issues.

One of our first priorities will be to review the effects of "legal highs" such as mephedrone, sometimes referred to as "miaow". Currently, it's perfectly legal to buy and use these drugs in a completely unregulated manner. Yet there are real scientific concerns about the harm they might cause.

We will publish guidance on these drugs to inform public discussion, media coverage and policy formation. We will also publish guidance on the effects of ketamine. This powerful drug is currently a Class C drug. It can have all sorts of unpleasant and long-term side effects on users.

Until recently, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) was actively reviewing both legal highs and ketamine. This work came to a halt following my dismissal as chair and the subsequent resignation of several other scientists. The new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs will seek to support the work of the ACMD and policy formation by ensuring that the best scientific evidence on the effects of drugs is made available. There has been some speculation that we are setting up a rival body. This is simply not the case.

The new committee will also provide accessible information on drugs to the wider public and engage in an ongoing dialogue. We will be developing a dynamic web presence and making sure that all our work is freely available. We will also be using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter: indeed, you can follow me now on Twitter at @ProfDavidNutt.

All too often, crucial information on the effects of drugs is buried away in arcane scientific journals and the debates of expert groups. We want to make sure that this information is much more accessible.

School officials have suspended a 10-year-old girl in New York for bringing peppermint oil to the John Mandracchia-Sawmill Intermediate School and giving drops to her fifth grade friends to flavor their water. The Commack School District insists that the oil “is an unregulated over-the-counter drug.”

The peppermint-laden drug dealer is Sara Morton-Greiner. She was suspended for one day.

Now many would argue that this could have been handled as an innocent mistake and the girl given a reprimand and letter for her parents. But peppermint oil has long been recognized as a gateway flavor to Spearmint for “Mento-heads.” Their sweet smelling breath is an well-known indicator of an underground mint-based drug economy at schools. When Sara is clean and her breath is stale, she can resume her education.

For the full story, click here.

Police warn over mephedrone dangers after user 'ripped off scrotum'

Police are warning of the dangers of revellers taking a "legal" drug, which has led to one user ripping off his own scrotum.

Mephedrone is being sold legally on the internet as plant fertiliser but is more commonly known on the streets as "drone", "bubble", "meow meow" or "legal high".

Its chemical formula is one molecule different to ecstasy and as such dealers are claiming is not a controlled substance.

Their sales pitch is that in powder, crystal or liquid form it is a legal ecstasy.

However, Durham Police are warning that its use can result in severe nose bleeds, nose burns, hallucinations, blood circulation problems, rashes, anxiety and paranoia, fits, delusions and can lead to a heart attack.

It can become addictive and taken with alcohol or cut with other drugs it could result in death.

Police said five young people had been admitted to hospital in County Durham in recent weeks after taking mephedrone.

In Sweden an 18-year-old died from taking the drug and it has now been banned there, as well as Israel, Norway and Finland.

Acting Sergeant Mick Urwin said: "The misuse of mephedrone could have a significant impact upon the drugs market both nationally and locally.

"It can be envisaged that its use will become wider as word gets around of the ease of its availability and the fact it is not an illegal substance.

"There are no criminal offences relating to the possession or supply of mephedrone and the effects are the same as Class A drugs.

"The drug's extremely addictive and the user had to normally top up on a regular basis.

"It could become a huge problem for both the police and local health authority.

"Although it commonly appears to be turned into a powder and ingested inside a capsule, one concern is what are the effects if it digested in its liquid form, if drops are placed in a drink in a crowded bar and an unwitting person was to drink it. If so, it could have devastating consequences."

The officer has compiled a report into the use of mephedrone across the Durham force area and part of his research has focused on online forums.

The report states: "A large number of contributors state how addictive mephedrone is and they are constantly topping up as one individual states that after using it for 18 hours his hallucinations led him to believe that centipedes were crawling over him and biting him.

"This led him to receive hospital treatment after he ripped his scrotum off."

Inspector Kevin Tuck added: "We have seen the effects it has on young people.

"We have had officers assaulted by those high on it and two people have collapsed in the street.

"One person at Cockfield took 36 hours to come down from his 'high' and then had very serious paranoid problems when he did.

"Concerns have been raised via pub watch and local youth services and we even have individuals from elsewhere in the country trying to buy via Teesdale links.

"People are blatantly saying there is nothing the police can do because it is 'legal'.

"The use of this drug is becoming more prevalent. Parents should be on their guard - particularly at this time of the year.

"They need to know it is freely available on the internet and that teenagers are talking about it."

Darren Archer, manager of the County Durham Drug and Alcohol Action Team, said: "People are allowing themselves to be fooled into believing that just because a drug is not illegal it must be safe.

"Products sold as plant fertiliser will not be tested as safe for human consumption and will cause damage to health.

"I can understand how people can be forced by peer pressure to experiment. My advice would be to use recognised websites like TalktoFRANK.com to get the full facts."

A Home Office spokeswoman said mephedrone was not controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

"However, it will form part of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' (ACMD) consideration of the harms and availability of other so called 'legal highs'," she said.

"The Home Office would consider any recommendation from the ACMD." 

Sounds like bollocks to me...

Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century

April 15-18, 2010 in the San Francisco Bay Area

An International Conference
Offering Continuing Medical Education (CME) Credits.

Open to Physicians,
Other Therapeutic and Medical Professionals,
and the General Public

Psychedelic Science will bring together international experts to present on psychedelic research and psychedelic psychotherapy topics for the largest conference dedicated solely to psychedelics in the U.S. in 17 years. There will be three full days of programming with concurrent tracks exploring clinical applications, issues relevant to healthcare professionals, and social and cultural issues surrounding the therapeutic and recreational uses of psychedelics.

Psychedelic Science will offer pre- and post-conference workshops with Stanislav Grof, M.D., Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Michael Mithoefer, M.D., Annie Mithoefer, B.S.N., Alex and Allyson Grey, David Nichols, Ph.D., Franz Vollenweider, M.D., Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., and Ann Harrison and Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia of the Women's Visionary Congress.

***Take advantage of our early registration rates before December 31, 2009.***

"Cocaine's a hell of a drug, and even more so when laced with another drug that's commonly used to deworm opossums." DEA agents report that some 69% of cocaine seized en route to US market is cut with levamisole, a veterinary drug believed to weaken the human immune system. (PopSci via Instapundit)

Inconvenient truths

Dec 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

The most creative attempt yet to get around freedom-of-information laws?

STRETCHING the law on the disclosure of public documents has been a competitive sport among civil servants ever since the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act was passed in 2000. It requires public bodies to reveal information on request, but provides 23 get-outs, designed to protect secrets that ought to stay under wraps because they threaten national security, personal privacy and so on. The rules are often interpreted in a creative way.

Now The Economist has discovered a contender for the most inventive interpretation to date. After thinking about it for nearly two years and trying out various exemptions, the Home Office has refused to release a confidential assessment of its anti-drugs strategy requested by Transform, a pressure group. The reason is that next March the National Audit Office (NAO), a public-spending watchdog, is due to publish a report of its own on local efforts to combat drugs. The Home Office says that to have two reports about drugs out at the same time might confuse the public, and for this reason it is going to keep its report under wraps.

This is believed to be the first time that a public body has openly refused to release information in order to manage the news better. The department argues that releasing its internal analysis now “risks misinterpretation of the findings of the [NAO] report”, because its own analysis is from 2007 and predates the NAO’s findings. The argument uses section 36 of the FOI act, which provides a broad exemption for information that could “prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs”.

The information commissioner, who polices the FOI act, declined to comment because the case was still open. But his predecessor, Richard Thomas, who stepped down in June, questioned the novel defence. “Certainly my office was always quite sceptical of anything which said publishing information is going to confuse the public. If that’s the case, normally you need to put out some extra material alongside it to provide adequate explanation. It’s not a reason for withholding something.”

Sir Alan Beith, the chairman of the parliamentary Justice Committee, which oversees the FOI act, was sharply critical of the Home Office’s excuse. “That’s really scraping the barrel. On those grounds you would have to ban the various hospital reports that are coming out at the moment [see article] because the public are confused about that too. It’s not an argument for censorship, it’s an argument for an even more open and clear debate.” The Home Office was making “a quite ridiculous attempt to hide from freedom of information,” he said.

The legality of the decision is also in doubt, after the department admitted that its refusal to release the document had not been approved by a minister, as is required by law. A Home Office spokeswoman called it an “administrative error”. Retrospective ministerial authorisation was being sought as The Economist went to press.

Legally or not, the Home Office will be able to hang on to its report for now because the FOI act takes so long to enforce. The commissioner’s office is said to be ready to order the release of the report now. If it does, the Home Office has 28 days to launch an appeal, which could take a year. In the meantime, drugs policy will continue to be shaped—or not—by research that the public paid for but may not see.

"LSD was first synthesized on November 16, 1938 by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland."

Daniel Radcliffe categorically denies smoking cannabis

Harry Potter actor hits back at claims published in the Mirror today that he smoked pot at a London house party

• Catherine Shoard and agencies
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009 13.15 GMT
• Article history

Daniel Radcliffe Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has categorically denied smoking cannabis at a party after photos of his alleged drug use were splashed in the Mirror today.

The roll-up being smoked by the 20-year-old actor at the flat of a friend in Camden, north London, contained merely tobacco, a spokesman for the star explained. "Daniel does smoke the occasional roll-up cigarette, but he was not doing anything more than this," he said.

"We are considering our position and will be taking all necessary action in relation to such allegations."

Pictures on the cover of the Mirror and a two-page spread inside show the actor laughing after having allowed a fellow partygoer to draw a beard on his face.

Radcliffe is currently putting the finishing touches on his performance in the final two-part episode of the Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.