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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty
    #9777050 - 02/11/09 07:07 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty
February 11, 2009 - bloomberg.com

Prime Minister Gordon Brown rejected advice from a panel of scientists to reduce the penalties for possession and sale of ecstasy in the U.K., keeping the drug on par with cocaine and heroin.

The government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended that the government downgrade MDMA, a stimulant known colloquially as ecstasy, to the category that includes cannabis and other amphetamines. That would cut the maximum penalty for possession to five years from seven.

The decision reflects Brown’s effort to toughen drug rules that were relaxed under Tony Blair’s administration between 1997 and 2007. Ecstasy use is on the rise in Britain, which already leads European Union in use of amphetamines.

“The government firmly believes that ecstasy should remain a Class A drug,” Michael Ellam, Brown’s spokesman, told reporters in London today. “They make recommendations, but it’s ultimately for government to make the decisions.”

The Home Office last year said it wanted to keep the current classification of ecstasy and didn’t ask the panel to review the matter. In May 2008, Brown said the U.K. will raise the penalty for possession of cannabis, rejecting advice from the same panel, which said there should be no change. Police praised the decision.

‘Mixed Message’

“Any reclassification would send out a mixed message, particularly to the young and vulnerable who would see it not as a reclassification, but as a downgrading,” said Ian Johnston, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association. “Ecstasy is illegal and is harmful, and if scientists and academics want any proof of that they could go to speak to the families who have lost loved ones as a result of taking ecstasy.”

The panel’s chairman, Bristol University academic David Nutt, wrote in an academic journal last month that using the drug was no more dangerous than riding horses.

Nutt said he is “disappointed” by the decision and that the committee stood by the report. He said Brown made a “political decision” about the issue.

“The decisions we came to were not made by a committee one morning sticking their fingers in the air and seeing which way the wind was blowing,” Nutt told reporters in London today.

About 33 people in England and Wales die every year from ecstasy use, according to U.K. government statistics. About 6.7 percent of the U.K. adult population has tried ecstasy, more than any other EU country except for the Czech Republic.

Use of amphetamines, a broader family of drugs that creates a high by stimulating the nervous system, was 11.2 percent in the U.K., almost double the levels in Denmark, Norway and Germany where the drugs are most prevalent, according to the 2006 EU annual report on drug abuse.

The U.K. Department of Health estimates that 1.8 percent of adults took ecstasy in 2007, up from 1.6 percent the year before. Almost 5 percent of young adults between age 16 and 24 used it at least once in the past year.

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Registered: 05/31/07
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Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: veggie]
    #9777065 - 02/11/09 07:20 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:


“Any reclassification would send out a mixed message, particularly to the young and vulnerable who would see it not as a reclassification, but as a downgrading,” said Ian Johnston, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association. “Ecstasy is illegal and is harmful, and if scientists and academics want any proof of that they could go to speak to the families who have lost loved ones as a result of taking ecstasy.”





I'm sorry but this just exemplifies everything that is wrong with the drug war and government involvement in science.



Count the fallacies....



I mean whatever your beliefs how could you hear this and not think its an arbitrary opposition?  No evidence is cited, just an appeal to unnamed parents.  And this idiot is actually trying to argue that scientists should start looking at anectdotal evidence more?  I mean wtf?




I'm curious though, who are the young people that have died from MDMA?  I was under the impression it hardly ever happened.  (excluding cases with other drugs contributing substantially as the reclassification wouldn't be affecting those anyways and it would be difficult to establish MDMA rather than the combination as the problematic agent.)


Do these cases exist?  How many are there?

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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: johnm214]
    #9777108 - 02/11/09 07:47 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

They use the statistic that 30 people die yearly out of 500,000 users. As these deaths make the news there is usually little or no evidence that mdma was the actual cause. But using those figures, giving them the benefit of the doubt, that would be .00006 (if my math is correct).

I'm thinking if a brand new product came on the market after government testing with a .00006 maximum death rate, it would be touted as a very safe product.

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InvisibleGreen_T
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Registered: 10/02/08
Posts: 4,042
Loc: UK Flag
Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: johnm214]
    #9777139 - 02/11/09 08:03 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Very true Veggie. I've heard a statistic that peanuts kill more people than ecstasy in the UK. I've seen other sources which say your "official statistic" is on the very generous side, but still: even at 60 deaths per million users compared to 625 for alcohol you can't tell the scientists to go "talk to the families".

There was a case in the 1990s where a high school girl died after taking one ecstasy pill for the first time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Betts). The government and the media took advantage of her death as an opportunity to create a shitstorm about how dangerous ecstasy is, saying "one pill can kill" and stuff like that - launching an "awareness" campaign.

It saturated the media and created a panic. It was later revealed she died from drinking way too much water (14 pints per hour as opposed to 1) because she had heard she had to drink a lot and didn't know how much to drink, but that didn't make the headlines. Some people still believe the misinformation, and think ecstasy can kill you off just one tablet.

EDIT: Check out this "risk table" and try to figure out where ecstasy lies...

Edited by green_titan (02/11/09 08:17 AM)

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: Green_T]
    #9777238 - 02/11/09 08:52 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Yeah, I'm aware of that, and that's why I ask who died from MDMA? 

The reclassification wouldn't affect the extasy products, only MDMA, so the combinations seem quite irrelevant unless MDMA can be singled out as causitive by itself.


Drinking too much is not an MDMA death.  Neither is taking meth and MDMA and being an idiot.


I just want to know how this guy can have the nerve to tell scientists that they need to disregard their studies and conclusions and instead talk to random parents- how is that science?  And I'd love to know who the parents are.  Maybe the cases are plentiful, but every stupid news story I've read has involved some other drug or something stupid like dehydration that at the most was accelerated by the empathogenic and stimulant effects of the drug, but that's like saying you should ban music for the same reason. 


I'm sorry, but this guy just said we should not change a bad law because our children will decide because the arbitrary classification now vs a year ago changed that the drug must be safe?  What?  Is cyanide a controlled substance?  No.... Is any of a million other things?  No.... Kids aren't fucking idiots, the drug laws make no fucking sense and everyone knows them.  They are about putting people in jail, not about risk- and only a fool would decide the government's criminal justice policies must be linearly related to the safety of a substance.


I'm just blown away that this guy would say "scientists need to consider more anecdotal reports"

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InvisibleCognitive_Shift
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Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: veggie]
    #9777555 - 02/11/09 10:37 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:


“Any reclassification would send out a mixed message, particularly to the young and vulnerable




PUHlease!  Mixed message?  The mixed message here is that your lieing to your children about MDMA.  Don't lie, don't teach bullshit, teach safe use. 

Quote:

particularly to the young and vulnerable



PUHlease, more bullshit propaganda about keeping the young safe, the same people that are shipping out 18 year old men to die in battle.  Stop your lieing rant about the 'danger' of drug use!  Its not working, the public is waking up to the amount of shit being uttered from that whole in your face.  Give it up!  Its bullshit!  Everyone knows its bullshit!  Stop taking away the peoples rights to be able to change their consciousness.


--------------------
L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs

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InvisibleFunguymon
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Registered: 01/27/09
Posts: 185
Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #9777802 - 02/11/09 11:46 AM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Police praised the decision.




Oh yeah, I suppose the cops would favor this because it only looks better on their record when they arrest someone for a class A drug and we don't want to pick any cherries from that tree and put them in a different bucket.

Quote:

The Home Office last year said it wanted to keep the current classification of ecstasy and didn’t ask the panel to review the matter.




Quote:

“They make recommendations, but it’s ultimately for government to make the decisions.”




These two quotes seem to contradict the government's position.

The only way the laws will change is when the majority of the public quits basing logic off of emotion, that it when great reform for everything will begin. I believe the government is a reflection of the publics mind when it comes down to responsibility. I think going straight for the government on change wastes time compared to targeting the minds of the public.

Just imagine how the scientists feel about their government. At least in the UK they have scientists on the board rather than law enforcement personnel like back here in the states.

Quote:

almost double the levels in Denmark, Norway and Germany where the drugs are most prevalent




That does not surprise me.

Quote:

About 6.7 percent of the U.K. adult population has tried ecstasy, more than any other EU country except for the Czech Republic.




haha, that did! I wonder how the Czech government classify their substances.

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InvisibleGreen_T
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Registered: 10/02/08
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Loc: UK Flag
Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: Funguymon]
    #9777861 - 02/11/09 12:01 PM (15 years, 1 month ago)

This article I posted (The Police Don't Care What Class Durgs Are) seems surprisingly relevant to this article.

Downgrading does not do anything to public perception, but merely what happens when someone is caught. People don't rely on scheduling for their drug safety information. I especially dislike the "but what message will it send teh children" argument, because here in the states heroin and marijuana are class one, and everyone knows marijuana is incredibly harmless.....so what message does THAT send the children?


--------------------

"I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Thomas Jefferson

Legalize Meth | Drug War Victims

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InvisibleFunguymon
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Registered: 01/27/09
Posts: 185
Re: Brown Overrules Advice From Scientists on UK Ecstasy Penalty [Re: Green_T]
    #9778090 - 02/11/09 01:04 PM (15 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

I especially dislike the "but what message will it send teh children" argument, because here in the states heroin and marijuana are class one, and everyone knows marijuana is incredibly harmless.....so what message does THAT send the children




Never thought of it that way. Good call green_titan

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