Whilst watching Sky News this morning i was shocked to discover that i actually agree with a decision taken by the current Government. The interview with Home Secretary Alan Johnson was regarding the recent dismissal of the head of Labour’s drug advisory board, Profesor David Nutt.
Since this decision was made, Dr Les King of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, has resigned in protest to Prof Nutt being denied his ‘freedom of speech’ so say the BBC. However this is entirely misleading and misrepresenting the point. The issue is not whether Prof Nutt is permitted to express his opinions or not, rather the fact that he has taken an opposing view to those people he is supposed to be advising and representative of.
Having spoken openly against the Government’s decision to upgrade cannabis to a Class B from a Class C and having claimed that taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse, you can see why the Home Secretary felt this man was not a good representative of the Brown leadership.
Let’s just think about this for a moment. If the Government were to appoint a military expert to advise it on the deployment of our nuclear arsenal, would it then be ok for said expert to join the CND. No, of course not. If they were to appoint someone to discuss the problems of prolonged NHS waiting lists and this person then said that they didn’t think they actually existed then again there would be a problem. So what is the difference when the chief drug advisor attacks the decisions that the Government have made.
In reality the arguments as to whether it’s right or wrong to change drug classification will be somewhat lost now as the issue becomes more and more politicised but i do not think that we can blame the Government for sacking someone who has been attacking them publicly.
Oh and you may want to take a picture people because me agreeing with Governmental decisions does not happen very often.
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