Following the heels of the Chinese factories who are working on the manufacture of new legal highs, the Home Office have announced that they were closing down the loophole that would allow this.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We are planning to introduce a system of temporary bans for new emerging ‘legal highs’. Temporary bans will allow us to make substances illegal while we seek full scientific advice.”

Former government chief drugs adviser Professor David Nutt said that banning the drugs would never work. He suggested a controlled use of the substances was more effective, saying: “some regulated access, along the coffee shop model for cannabis in the Netherlands I think will have to come.”

Some drug campaigners believe that education on the risks of so-called legal highs would be a more effective way of dealing with the new wave of drugs.

So this is what ex-Chair of the ACMD, Prof Nutt, has to say about the Home Secretary’s announcement to ban mephedrone:

-       The Government’s decision was a “knee-jerk” reaction to respond to media and public hysteria;

-       The Government should have waited until the anticipated report from The European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction, due out in July;

-       He finds it “difficult to support criminalisation of people who are using drugs which are less dangerous than alcohol”;

-       A new approach needs to be taken to evaluate synthetic drugs;

-       Hopes that careful assessments are carried out of the consequences of the ban.

Seems like Easter wasn’t much of a break for the Advisory Council of the Misuse of Drug with the latest resignation of yet another member, Eric Carlin on the 1st of April, and the imminent controversy surrounding the Council’s chairman Prof Iversen’s link to a group campaigning against anti-drug regulations.

Resignation of Eric Carlin

As the seventh member of the ACMD to resign following the sacking of Professor David Nutt, Eric Carlin has expressed how unhappy he is with how the Council operates. He claims that the Home Secretary went ahead with press conferences on plans to ban mephedrone when the Council had not considered their own recommendations. Mr Carlin also criticises the Council’s approach as facilitating the potential criminalisation of increasing numbers of people, rather than getting to the root cause. Read Eric Carlin’s blog here about his resignation including his resignation letter to the Home Secretary.

ACMD’s Professor Iversen’s link to controversial charity

As the chief adviser to the Government on the misuse of drugs, it has been claimed that Prof Iversen is listed as a key adviser of the Beckley Foundation, a controversial charity committed to legalising drugs under the guise of ‘studying consciousness and altered states’. Ann Widdecombe (former Tory Home Office Minister) has called for the resignation of Prof Iversen as head of the ACMD and said: ‘The fact that he was prepared to lend his name to a body pushing for softer policies on drug use means he should not be advising the Government on this issue’.  Prof Iversen claims he no longer has anything to do with the organisation but its website still lists him as one of its scientific advisers.

Recently resigned ACMD adviser Dr Polly Taylor has stated that her problems with the committee stems from the meetings following the dismissal of Prof Nutt in November and that they were unhappy with the treatment of Prof. Nutt at the time and the implications it had of the treatment of scientific advice.

Dr Taylor says the Government’s want of mutual trust between politicians and scientists is subjective. It gives no guardian against the Government not liking the advice it has been given, therefore the risk exists of dismissing the person giving the advice. She states that it is “desperately important” to be able to give true independent advice and this can be difficult if they know their job is in jeopardy as they are biased by trying to communicate something that the recipient wants to get. She goes on to state that emotive comments made “must be objective, carefully-examined advice based on looking at all data and not just individual emotive responses and knee-jerk reactions.”

Read full resignation letter to the Home Secretary here.

Listen here for the BBC’s Five Live with Tony Livesey on mephedrone and whether this ‘legal high’ should be banned.  The father of one of the Scunthorpe teenage victims of this drug expresses his outrage that the ACMD has not yet released their report to the Government despite recent deaths.  Others speak out their views on mephedrone and whether this should be banned.

Livesey also speaks with Prof Nutt (ex-Chief Drug Advisor to the Government) who states that all drugs are harmful but the question depends on relative harm.  The case to determine whether to illegalise mephedrone requires a cautionary approach taken.  The question of harm should be a public debate.

Apparently, as Chief Advisor before being sacked, Prof Nutt had already recommended to the Government that mephedrone should be classified into the holding class, Class D…advice that was obviously not taken.  Prof Nutt is of the view that if their advice were taken, it would have likely prevented these recent death cases.