Some drugs stories are bigger than others

The sacking of David Nutt has been portrayed by the UK media as both one man's heroic struggle against the government's misguided war on drugs and also as one man's attempts to thrust his left-wing opinions onto the masses. Both versions of events are a little fanciful.

David Nutt, i suspect, is not banging the drum for the re-classification of drugs in the UK purely out of altruistic motives. I am sure he believes what he is saying but he is being so vocal about policy change now because he has been humiliated in public by Alan Johnson. In return he wants to give Mr Johnson a little ear ache. He has certainly succeeded in doing that and the embarrassment for the Home Secretary has amplified in recent days with an increasing amount of the scientific community ready support Nutt.

If you read Nutt's lecture (part published in the Guardian today) for which he was sacked, his claims on the dangers of drugs do not seem that controversial. Fighting the other side of the argument, Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail supports the present classification of ecstacy and cocaine and dismisses Nutt's appeals for a re-think. She quotes other scientists whose evidence shows that ecstasy is as powerful as cocaine and that cannabis can cause psychosis and schizophrenia.

Ah, Prof. Nutty has been exposed as a snake-oil salesman then. Well no because David Nutt seems to agree with the Phillips' scientists (maybe they all read the same research?).

In his lecture, Nutt explains: "What we can say is that cannabis use is associated with an increased experience of psychotic disorders...if you use a lot of it, it will make you more prone to having psychotic experiences. That includes schizophrenia".

He does point out however that schizophrenia numbers have fallen in the country over the last thirty years as cannabis use has massively increased, which would seem argue against a direct cause and effect.

Phillips' other argument about how 'powerful' ecstasy is seems intentionally misleading, of course its strong otherwise so many young people wouldn't take it, what Nutt said was it was less deadly - something very different.

This leads on to the most interesting part of David Nutt's argument. He says that one of the problems with the public drugs debate is that the media reports a very distorted view of the situation. A research study in Scotland between 1990 and 1999 showed there were 2,255 drug deaths, of which the Scottish newspapers reported 546. Amazingly 26 out of 28, almost all, where ecstasy was proved to be a contributing factor, were reported in the press. You can imagine the headlines too "Another young victim murdered by death drug". Over the same period 2,000 to 3,000 Scots died as a result of alcohol.

I don't like to think of myself as naive and i try to question everything i read in the news, but i was shocked by his evidence. I don't think I really do know the truth about how dangerous different drugs are. If it is not reported how many people die as a result of taking morphine, i am going to be uniformed as to the drugs relative dangers.

Of course there are very real dangers to the drugs being discussed in this deabate and many tragic stories. Its hard for a newspaper to report a ecstasy fatality without recalling those distressing images connected to the death of Leah Betts . Lots of activities are dangerous however, horseriding included as Proff Nutt pointed out, and their dangers should be reported in an accurate way.

The truth is never going to get in the way of a good story though, and maybe some drugs stories like girls for Morrisey, will always be bigger than others.