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UK: Research that shows Ecstasy is less dangerous than alcohol is 'awful from start to finish' says drug expert

James Slack

Daily Mail

Wednesday 26 Nov 2008

Ecstasy is too dangerous to be downgraded from Class A to Class B, a drugs expert said yesterday.

Professor Andy Parrott told the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs that research which suggested the drug was less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco was 'awful from start to finish'.

Mr Parrott, a psychology professor at Swansea University, has spent more than a decade studying the harm caused by ecstasy.

He said: 'It's not a weak drug. It is one of the most powerful of the recreational drugs.'

The advisory council will pass its verdict on the drug to the Home Office. It is thought to favour a downgrading.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will make the final decision.

At a public evidence session of the ACMD, one of the country's leading drugs scientists called for Miss Smith to be stripped of this power to decide.

Sir Gabriel Horn said decisions on drug classification should instead pass to an independent committee, similar to the Bank of England committee which sets interest rates.
acqui Smith

Final decision: Home secretary Jacqui Smith will decide whether to soften the law on ecstasy

The panel would be independently appointed, and take advice from the ACMD.

Sir Gabriel's remarks will be interpreted as a swipe at Miss Smith's decision to over-rule the ACMD's suggestion that cannabis should remain Class C, and push it back up to B.

Yesterday, Peers lodged their own protests against the cannabis decision, unsuccessfully attempting to halt the reclassification process.

They had been backed by former government chief scientific advisers David King and Lord Robert May, who said the drugs classification system must be 'credible' and that changing the classification of cannabis again would give an 'ambiguous message'.

Meanwhile, the ACMD announced yesterday that its next review of drugs classifications is likely to cover LSD, which is c

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1089492/Research-shows-Ecstasy-dangerous-alcohol-awful-start-finish-says-drug-expert.html

 

 

 

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