The Nutty Professor, otherwise
known as Professor David Nutt, has recently made headline news again, this time
for suggesting that alcohol is more dangerous than heroin or crack cocaine, and
he produced a plethora of statistical evidence to back up his research, with
graphs and flow charts splashed across the front pages of the tabloids.
Nutty first came to public
prominence when he was appointed the government’s top drugs adviser back in
2008. His remit was to advise on the
classification of harmful drugs, and in particular, the reclassification of
cannabis from class ‘C’ back to class ‘B’. But far from supporting the government’s position, he not only advised
that cannabis should remain class ‘C’, he also advised that ecstasy should be
downgraded from class ‘A’.
In support of this advice, he
advanced a theory, called ‘equasy’, where he argued that it was more harmful to
ride a horse than it was to take ecstasy. Make of that what you will!
I suspect that much of this is in
response to his name, not helped by the success of the two eponymous films
produced by Disney. He is determined to
be wacky. Sadly however, for him at least, he wants us to take him
seriously. He can’t have it both ways.
Needless to say, his latest
pontifications have been met with widespread ridicule, and rightly so. But by
taking the extreme cases of alcohol abuse, he diminishes his argument. We all know that alcohol taken in excess over
a period of time is harmful and potentially life threatening. We all know that those under the influence of
alcohol are likely to behave in an antisocial way, and we all know that this
can lead to violence and crime.
But to equate the consumption of
alcohol per se with heroin and crack cocaine is a deeply flawed
comparison. Heroin and crack cocaine,
even when taken in small amounts, are highly addictive, as those who labour
regularly at the coalface, through the courts, the professional agencies and
the police, know all too well.
Those of us who climb behind the
wheel of a car are far more likely to be killed or maimed than if we stayed at
home, and the same applies to horse riders, who are far more likely to be
thrown from their horse than those of us who wouldn’t climb into a saddle for
all the tea in China. My limited experience of riding quickly
persuaded me of the folly. My horse was
more comfortable going backwards than forwards, and it farted all the
time. It was its primary mode of
propulsion.
But seriously, it must have been
a very quiet day in the newsrooms to have given such claptrap the extensive
coverage it never merited in the first place. Publicity, even bad publicity, is the oxygen of life for Nutty and his
camp followers, and we have only ourselves to blame. The same applies to the preacher in the
States, obviously barking mad, and with a congregation of no more than thirty
lost souls, who rose to international prominence when he decided to hold a
“burn the Koran” day on the village green. Instead of ignoring him, it made headline news around the world, and the
preacher had his Andy Warhol moment, never to be heard or seen again.
All this claptrap is enough to
drive a man to drink. Mine’s a large
scotch, and go easy on the water!
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