This book is far too sensible an approach to drugs for any politician outside of a Scandinavian country to pay attention to. Jacqui Smith, who was Home Secretary at the time, justified ignoring the recommendations of our report because, she said, her † “decision takes into account issues such as public perception and the needs and consequences for policing priorities. The book doesn't offer a program to win over recalcitrant government officials, but it's loaded with studies and policy suggestions that, if properly applied, would certainly save money and lives. exposures and these are unpredictable, though more likely in experienced users who take more risks with equasy. What was remarkable about this paper was our finding that alcohol was the 4 th most harmful drug in the UK – below heroin and crack cocaine but above tobacco, cannabis and psychedelics.

Nutt presents a comprehensive account of the damage that this causes, at individual, community, national, and international levels.I have included this political interchange at the start of this book to emphasize an issue that will come up in almost every chapter: the role of politicians and the media in overruling scientific evidence in the making of drugs policy. The very last section of the book is an “information box” on butane and other solvents, after which it abruptly ends.

The muppets in the present and future governments should read this book before wasting another day in the office. About the Author: David Nutt is a psychiatrist, the Edmund J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology in Imperial College London and chair of DrugScience. It makes many people do illegal things (and he argues that the legal effects – getting jailed – are much worse than smoking it) – kids included. Plus, while David Nutt clearly has his own opinions present in this book, I think he wrote a fairly good representation of the facts as well (this based on my own general knowledge and what I have learned at uni).In particular, Nutt compared the risks of ecstasy use with that of horse riding, claiming ecstasy use was much safer. David Nutt confronts the many controversial issues concerning both legal and illegal drug use, including its political regulation, with a combination of common sense, evidence-based argument and passion. A little knowledge (to misquote Pope) is a dangerous thing and most teenagers who try drugs are at best only partly informed.

But this question was repeated in the other interviews that week – everybody wanted the quote that alcohol was more harmful than cannabis. For example, he points out that tobacco and alcohol are drugs that are much more dangerous than many illegal drugs. This book covers various aspects of drug use: how drugs work, how harmful they are, what addiction is, what treatments are available and so on.

If countries looking to take a similar approach need outside counsel, this British scientist, rejected by his short-sighted government, has written as good a handbook as one is likely to find. A typical chapter uses its focus to discuss some related concept – for example, the chapter on cocaine looks at the kinetics of drug taking, or how the method of delivering a substance can vastly affect its harmful effects and addictiveness. From Mexico to Uruguay, governments are debating liberalizing drug laws and even setting up regulated, legal markets. For the most part I blocked them out with headphones as I was reading, but what I caught of their chat was pretty entertaining.

The book is highly recommended for everyone, particularly parents who are worried how their children may be affected by drugs. It is intended for people who take drugs, and those dealing with the harms drugs cause: parents, teachers, doctors, politicians, social workers and law enforcement agencies. In the book (and this paper – published in a leading psychology journal) he argues for the greater danger from Equasy. The costs may be quite low as schools would presumably be compliant with the ban, while the benefits are high in terms of harms avoided.As it stands, it looks like the current drugs legislation has done nothing to ameliorate the supply, the demand for and the harm done by these drugs. It’s easy to assume that the author has a chip on his shoulder after being controversially removed from his governmental position.