Poppers: The War Against Pleasure

Why is the government so anti-pleasure, particularly for gay men? Much of the drive to ban legal highs has come from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a rightwing thinktank that has consistently misled the public and government about the harms of legal highs. These claims have been refuted by DrugScience.

Much of the pressure to ban legal highs has come from the Centre for Social Justice, a right-wing thinktank

One of CSJ’s main attacks is on what it calls the “loosening” of laws on moral values in the past decades, leading to the erosion of the family. The acceptance of homosexuality is one of its main concerns. It is hard not to conclude that the government shares this opinion and that the poppers ban is in fact an attempt to deter – or even punish – men who enjoy having sex with men.

This is the conspiracy theory explanation, but we must also consider that the government is confused. It may think nitric oxide is the same as nitrous oxide. Confidence in its reasoning is not encouraged by the fact that at the first reading of the psychoactive substances bill, government spokespeople several times referred to a ban on nitrates, which are fertilisers, not nitrites.

Whatever the reasoning behind the popper ban, it is fundamentally flawed. Poppers should be removed from the psychoactive substances bill, though it would be much more honest to scrap the whole legislation as it is so lacking in justification and logic.

David Nutt, The Guardian.

Newsflash! Poppers Stay Legal In Tory U-turn, Mirror.

Drugs Kill: Rational Debate

Green MP Caroline Lucas has said "fear of the tabloids" has driven UK drug policy for the last few decades.

A group of backbenchers from all parties are urging the government to review the "failing" Misuse of Drugs Act, in a debate brought by Ms Lucas.

It comes as the Home Office publishes two separate reports into different approaches to drug misuse around the world and legal highs in the UK.

The Home Office has said it is not considering any shift in drugs policy...

Ms Lucas said successive governments had consistently refused to take an "evidence-based approach" out of "fear of the tabloids", while Labour's Paul Flynn said drug policy since 1971 had been "evidence-free and prejudice-rich"...

BBC News.

Well said, Caroline.

And well done to Norman Baker, the Lib Dem Home Office minister, for stating the obvious; the drug laws don't work. *

Surprisingly, this was broadly welcomed by the papers.

But fear not, narcophobes, a leading politician makes an intervention like this every few years, and nothing ever changes.

* Much of this debate has been around reducing drug use. Fagburn is all for reducing drug harm, but can't see why reducing having fun is a goal we should be pursuing.

PS If you're interested in evidence-rich and prejudice-free reporting on drugs and drug laws - and challenging media hysteria and lies - please read David Nutt's website, DrugScience.

Thankfully, the gay media never indulges in fact-free scaremongering about drugs...

Crystal: More Balls

2014 marks an important anniversary.
It was twenty years ago that the first article in the UK gay press warning about Crystal Meth was published in the short-lived magaine, Phase.
Every year ever since we have been warned by the gay and straight press that the UK gay scene is about to get taken over by Crystal AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!
You may have noticed this has not happened.
To mark the 20th anniversary we are being taken over by a new flood of warnings about meth.
Maybe it's been helped cause boring people may have now heard about it from Breaking Bad and the "shamed Crystal Methodist" Paul Flowers
The other week the Independent On Sunday was warning about a "meteroric rise" in "slamming" (injecting at sex parties).
Based on some data that showed this wasn't really happening.

Today Channel 4 News joined in the hysteria with an item; Is Crystal Meth Behind London's Rising HIV Levels?
Viewers learn that some gay men in London take drugs, some take crystal ("a very small proportion"), some like having sex on drugs - and some people even use something called "Grindr" and tell other gay men they take drugs!
It was all shocking stuff.
An expert says there is a "public health nightmare".
Antidote said that at London's two clinics for gay male drug users, 187 men had meth as their main problem in 2010.
[Channel 4 News admitted a recorded rise in meth users at the clinics "must be treated with caution - it may reflect greater awareness of the clinics."]
Crystal can certainly do terrible things to some users - so I wouldn't be surprised if a high proportion of gay men are having problems, even if they are a very small proportion of users - and Antidote are doing a great job helping them, but out of a London gay male population of maybe 200,000-500,000 is this really inidicative of such a big problem?
Or is this just more media gay + sex + drugs = death hysteria?

PS The Daily Mail join in the fun!

Update: An excellent piece by Professor David Nutt on the UK press this week reporting a woman's "Death by cannabis". Last week Anorak did a nice montage of tabloid stories about the EVIL ACID HOUSE MENACE!

Drugs Policy: Is Rational Debate Doomed?

There's a good article by Matthew Norman in The Independent today; 'Rule By The Right-wing Press Dooms Any Sensible Debate On Drugs'
"The primary issue here is one of political courage, or rather, its absence under fire. Any politician who dares to stand against the tabloids quickly undares"
Norman mentions the heroic and much vilified Professor David Nutt - shamelessly sacked by New Labour for talking sense about drug policy and harm.
Nutt has now set up the Independent Scientific Committee On Drugs - their website is a magnificent resource.

Drugs: First Do No Harm

You can read Professor David Nutt's report, Drug Harms In The UK, in The Lancet here.
It's a sign of our society's political infantilism that something so reasonable has beencausing such a fuss, and we continue to cling to a drugs policy of prohibition that is failing so spectacularly and doing so much harm to individuals and society.
Professor Nutt comments on the sadly predictable manufactured outrage by the mediain The Guardian today.
The website of Nutt's Independent Scientific Committee On Drugs is a wonderful resource.
Here, for example, is Nutt writing about Mephedrone: An end to the madness?' in April.
Sadly the answer was in the negative, but the struggle continues.