{"id":1580,"date":"2009-02-11T14:08:37","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T14:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2009-02-11T14:08:37","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T14:08:37","slug":"now-the-report-is-out-a-quick-follow-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"Now the report is out, a quick follow up."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of <a href=\"http:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/?author=2\" title=\"BLOGDIAL   &raquo; Alun\">Alun&#8217;s<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/?p=1567&amp;cpage=1#comment-34474\" title=\"BLOGDIAL  &raquo; Blog Archive   &raquo; Don&#8217;t do as I do, do as I tell you\">comments<\/a>, that simply had to be promoted to a full post:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMartin Barnes, chief executive of the think tank DrugScope, who sits on the advisory council, said it was crucial that a rigorously independent body was entrusted with this type of research. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Mr Barnes added that when no other drug was involved, ecstasy accounted for between 10-17 deaths a year. \u201d<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/7882708.stm\" title=\"BBC NEWS | UK | 'Ecstasy should be class B drug'\">http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/7882708.stm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For comparison:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.statistics.gov.uk\/cci\/nugget.asp?id=1091\" title=\"National Statistics Online\">http:\/\/www.statistics.gov.uk\/cci\/nugget.asp?id=1091<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFigures on alcohol-related deaths in 2007 indicate a levelling-off of the trend, following rapid increases since the early 1990s. There were 8,724 alcohol-related deaths in 2007, lower than 2006, but more than double the 4,144 recorded in 1991. The alcohol-related death rate was 13.3 per 100,000 population in 2007, compared with 6.9 per 100,000 population in<br \/>\n1991.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Back to the report and responses to it:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Police Superintendents\u2019 Association of England and Wales has expressed opposition to suggestions that ecstasy should be downgraded to a Class B drug.<\/p>\n<p>Ian Johnston, president of the association, told the BBC the downgrade could be dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cThis is not some academic or scientific exercise, this is dealing with people\u2019s lives. If we downgrade ecstasy, we are in danger of sending mixed messages out to young and vulnerable people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the Home Office restored cannabis from Class C to Class B, against the wishes of the advisory council.<\/p>\n<p>Ministers are now set to resist the council\u2019s recommendation on ecstasy. \u201c[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>So, what exactly is the mixed message?<br \/>\nThat heroin is as \u2018good\u2019 as E, or that E is as \u2018bad\u2019 as heroin?<br \/>\nThat 30 deaths from an untaxed substance is bad, but 8724 deaths from a heavily taxed substance is acceptable?<br \/>\nThat independent, expert advice is necessary, but worthless?<br \/>\nThat arses and elbows are identical in Jacqui Smiths head?<\/p>\n<p>Or that while HMG claims to know \u201cWhat is Right and Wrong for You\u201d, HMGs response to this report yet again only demonstrates why only idiots submit to governmental control over what goes in their body?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of Alun&#8217;s comments, that simply had to be promoted to a full post: \u201cMartin Barnes, chief executive of the think tank DrugScope, who sits on the advisory council, said it was crucial that a rigorously independent body was entrusted with this type of research. [&#8230;] Mr Barnes added that when no other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,50,26,18,27],"tags":[482,832,831,818,106,245,830],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irdial.com\/blogdial\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}