How Schedule 1 control may stifle medical advances

The Back-story
Months ago, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) were asked by the government to gather the evidence on the harms of methoxetamine (MXE, ‘mexxy’), a new drug related to ketamine (a ketamine ‘analogue’), and recommend to the Home Secretary what should be done about it. The ACMD did this, produced a report, the conclusions of which the government has accepted. As a result, an Amendment Order to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has been drawn up, adding methoxetamine into the Class B and Schedule 1 categories ...

Introduction

There are parallels between the responsibilities GPs and MPs hold; Doctors in prescribing drugs to maintain our health, politicians in proscribing (banning) drugs to protect public health. When doctors write us a new prescription, they do so in the knowledge that prescriptions have side effects. But we trust them to make an evidenced judgement, that the benefits of what they prescribe should outweigh the risks of the treatment.

We should expect equivalent balance when politicians write us a new bit of legislation. We should be able to trust that they understand the potential ‘side-effects’ their legislation may have, and ...

Last week we presented the first results of our new study on MDMA - ecstasy - and brain function over two live Channel 4 programmes. We hope you saw it! It was generally very well received as being a bold attempt to show the neuroscience behind a popular drug that might have therapeutic potential. It also introduced scientific concepts such as fMRI, double-blind trials and placebo control to a general audience.

There have been a few criticisms of the programme, some fair, some less so. One tweeter highlighted the absence of statistical significance on the graphics. We sympathise with this request, and ...

As you may know, earlier this month I gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s (HASC) current inquiry into drugs. We had a wide-ranging discussion across many aspects of alcohol and drug harms particularly in relation to the value of drug law reform and decriminalisation. (You can watch the session, including the interesting evidence of the subsequent witnesses online). I strongly believe that we should focus on public health approaches to the drug problem, and decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use, for the following simple reason;- If users are addicted then they are ill, and criminal ...

The BLF is an admirable charity that promotes lung health and supports those affected by lung disease. Unfortunately, last week they produced a press release promoting unfounded claims about the harms of cannabis to the lungs. These claims were uncritically parroted from this press release as ‘news’ by the BBC, Channel 4, Sky, the Independent, Telegraph, Metro, Evening Standard, the Huffington Post and more.

The BLF, who wish to promote awareness of “the serious, even fatal impact [cannabis] can have on the lungs”, managed to hit the headlines with a survey about public attitudes to cannabis commissioned alongside their new ...

I am often asked the question “if cannabis was as freely available as alcohol how many would use it and would its harms increase?.  Of course the answer is yes to both. However as about half of young people use cannabis, the increase from removing criminal sanctions would be relatively modest unless it was actively marketed as is alcohol. Certainly the Dutch coffee shop model of regulated but not legalized cannabis access appears not to have increased use since young people in the Netherlands have some of the lowest rates of cannabis use in Europe.

Perhaps the more interesting question ...

A guest post by Dr Les King.

The control of mephedrone and related compounds under the Misuse of Drugs Act in April 2010 was largely prompted by the media attention given to numerous alleged mephedrone fatalities. Subsequent toxicology examinations showed that most of those deaths were not caused by mephedrone, a finding now underscored by the latest statistics (REF 1) from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In 2010, in England and Wales, there were just 6 deaths where mephedrone was mentioned on the death certificate. By comparison, there were 144 fatalities where cocaine was mentioned. The significance of this ...

For 30 years we have had a systematic attack on the safety of ecstasy [MDMA]. This has been fueled by a desire by governments, lobbyists and some scientists to justify the illegal status of this drug which in the UK is at the very highest level – Class A. This puts it alongside drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin which by all scientific assessments are much more harmful [Nutt King and Phillips 2010].

Much of the so called scientific evidence that has been used to justify MDMA as being harmful is flawed, some just simply wrong as they used the ...

I write this from Mexico, where the ‘War on Drugs’ and clashing drug cartels have claimed thousands of lives. The billions of dollars worth of aid being pumped in countries in South America, Afghanistan and elsewhere have resulted in, at best, the ‘balloon effect’, where production is pushed down in one area only to pop up in another. In the fifty years since the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the ‘War on Drugs’ has morphed from a figurative battle to a literal one. The fog of war has driven politicians to go beyond the bounds of law in ...

In this guest post, Dr Les King and Rudi Fortson Q.C.  highlight how the last government’s meddling in legislation regarding cathinones, including mephedrone, at this time last year has generated confusion for forensic scientists and legal practitioners regarding the precise placing of some cathinones within Class B.  It is a problem that is only now being addressed.

Instead of accepting the generic definitions of cathinones drafted by members of the ACMD that would cover all the various types of cathinones, the Home Office took the unusual step of changing the legislation to specifically mention mephedrone to ‘send a ...