The Sacking of Professor David Nutt: Or Why British Drug Policy has nothing to do with the third Reich.
So the Daily mail has done it again. Hot on heels on Jan Moir's barely concealed hate speech against the "unnatural" (read homosexual) death of Stephen Gately. The venerable publication has once more proven how possible to dodge the mark of sanity.
I have just read A.N. Wilson's misguided response to the rather unceremonious sacking of Professor David Nutt. Professor Nutt finds himself on extended leave from his position as government drugs advisor after foolishly recommending both reclassifying cannabis and re-evaluating the actual harm threatened by ecstasy to its legion of users. Users whose main activity seems to be stampeding all over the countryside hugging one another in states of chemically induced bliss, ramblers beware.
Wilson has many issues with Professor Nutt's findings. Firstly he takes to task the scientific method used in the research leading up to the report. His damning accusation not being based on bad science or errors in methodology, but rather that the research was carried out...
Discovering that research driving national policy might be a little unimaginative in execution surprised me a little less than Wilson. It seems Mr Wilson would prefer fantastical creatures in laboratories all over the country, carrying clipboards and wearing white coats. I hear the biggest barrier to Unicorns entering the sciences are troublesome undergraduates balancing test tubes on their horns for cheap laughs, hooves making removal slightly problematic but highly amusing.
I suspect that by using the term "unimaginative", Wilson was attempting to suggest that science is generally carried out by a dense lot, unable to think outside the box of their ivory towers. Reading up on recent advances in theoretical physics might not be a bad idea for him. Some really fantastic books have been written on the topic that might convince him that science still has some creative problem solving power left in it, and I doubt he would find it unimaginative.
"in a laboratory by an unimaginative academic relying solely on empirical facts.".
Discovering that research driving national policy might be a little unimaginative in execution surprised me a little less than Wilson. It seems Mr Wilson would prefer fantastical creatures in laboratories all over the country, carrying clipboards and wearing white coats. I hear the biggest barrier to Unicorns entering the sciences are troublesome undergraduates balancing test tubes on their horns for cheap laughs, hooves making removal slightly problematic but highly amusing.
I suspect that by using the term "unimaginative", Wilson was attempting to suggest that science is generally carried out by a dense lot, unable to think outside the box of their ivory towers. Reading up on recent advances in theoretical physics might not be a bad idea for him. Some really fantastic books have been written on the topic that might convince him that science still has some creative problem solving power left in it, and I doubt he would find it unimaginative.
Even so, people disagreeing with scientists is understandable, laudable even. It could be argued that science itself is the process of extended disagreement. The problem comes when this disagreement carries with it the expungement of information.
This ideal doesn't seem to be held up in government, especially considering this gem from the cavernous used car salesman leer of Alan Johnson, Home Secretary.
"You cannot have a chief adviser at the same time stepping into the public field and campaigning against government decisions. You can do one or the other, you can’t do both"
It seems that times are darkening on this moistened green isle. You don't even need to burn books anymore. You can wipe out entire databases, if the information contained in them is undesirable.
With Professor Nutt Being a scientist, his findings being opposed to the party ideology should have no impact on any results published. It is clear that the last bastion of someone trying to defend something they suspect indefensible is attempting to remove the information from the debate. Luckily times are indeed a changing and the attempts to remove information tend to be met with an equal and opposite force. Ever hear of the Streisand Effect Home Secretary? Well you're living it now.
Not content to critisise scientists, Wilson smoothly segues into subtly accusing poor people of being uncontrollable substance abusers that need protecting from themselves.
"Try saying that ecstasy is safe in the sink estates of our big cities... to those who see, every single day, the devastation wrought not only on the youngsters themselves, but on whole communities by the casual abuse of drugs"
Not only does this smack of the sort of classism that I had hoped was unacceptable in British society today, it attempts to play on the fears that many people living in rich or poor areas have about their families safety. Suggesting that drugs are the source of all social disfunction is self-serving at best and more accurately described as manipulative propaganda.
Glossing over the champagne and cocaine parties happening in the more upmarket areas of the country, it is suggested that the lower classes of society are not eligible to be aware of the debate, much less have a say.
"It is one thing to argue Professor Nutt's case in a university common room or over a Hampstead dining table, but another to translate his arguments to murkier parts of our society".
Rich responsible people that take drugs and drink doesn't cause a problem. Don't worry about the banking system, it will be fine, just inject a little more quantitative easing. It's poor people, with their bad teeth, class A substances and dance parties. These are the people that are going to steal your money or mug your granny. The drugs make them do it and the drugs are bad.
It seems that if in fact rich people and poor people as groups both consume drugs, the problem Mr Wilson has isn't really with the drugs at all, it's with the poor people that consume them.
Finally Wilson goes for the big one. Swimming through the shallow muck of his outpouring, there is a comparison left standing that I really didn't expect him to resort to. The point in a debate where you know you have won it with out even trying. The argument that proves your opponent is dead in the water and they don't even know it. Accusing science as being legitimately at fault for the holocaust.
"The only difference between Hitler and previous governments was that he believed, with babyish credulity, in science as the only truth".
Just let that sink in for a moment. Say it with me. "The only difference between Hitler and previous governments was that he believed in science as the only truth."
The only difference.
The only difference.
I hope you get some hate mail from people with far too few relatives Mr Wilson. You surely deserve it.
