The dark side of rural decline - West Virginia's drug epidemic

West Virginia - mountain mama's drug den

I'm often cynical about moral panics around drugs and drug use as they tend to exaggerate or make use of tragic anecdotes to fuel the idea that it has reached epidemic proportions. I do, however, think the problem in parts of West Virginia is genuinely shocking:

Huntington, the second largest city in West Virginia, once had a population of more than 100,000 people, but that number has reduced to some 48,000, and almost one-quarter of these, some 12,000 citizens, have either latent or active substance-use disorders.

Here we see the trend of rural depopulation combined with a widely reported and discussed US problem with opiates. As with other rural and small town places where the reason for there being a population - agriculture, mining, forestry - has ended, those with any get up and go have got up and left. What's remains are the old, the poor and the sick (including some who tick all of these boxes) - and, for reasons ranging from broken families and poor education to the lack of jobs and ill health, what we've got is a drugs problem:

Beyond the numbing accountancy, though, the epidemic has done little to impress itself onto the wider American culture. So far, OxyContin has produced no Hogarth, no Coleridge, no De Quincey, no Easy Rider or Drugstore Cowboy, no Junkie or The Long Weekend. There is no country music equivalent of Bowie’s Berlin period, or not one with any wattage. There is some book-length journalism, a sliver of fiction, some recovery-themed Christian hip-hop and, perhaps by analogy, the zombie-themed television series The Walking Dead. Then a blank. The destruction of much of working-class America by opiates and opioids has happened silently. There seems almost nothing creative to say about it, or no way to say it.

To be fair this might not be so true of country music as a survey by Addictions.com shows country is now the genre most likely to reference drugs in its lyrics:

Out of eight categories, country leads the way with 1.6 mentions per song on average, followed closely by jazz and pop music. Hip-hop actually falls in the last place at less than 1.3 mentions behind folk, challenging the assumption that all rappers are lyrical drug peddlers.

And some of those lyrics - even back in 1980 - speak directly to that rural decline and how getting out, for all the homesickness, is the only option for most folk:

When I was in school I ran with a kid down the street
And I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed
But I was smarter than most and I could choose
Learned to talk like the man on the six o’clock news
When I was eighteen Lord I hit the road
But it really doesn't matter how far I go

There's a magic about rural places, a sort of ache in our hearts to return to a better, clearer, less crazed world. A world where waiting - dreckly as the Cornish say - is a reminder that that's how good things come. But the truth is that this life isn't real, it's the worst sort of bucolic myth because it means that the pain in rural places is ignored - as Steve Knightley wrote in his song 'Country Life':

My old man is eighty four
His generation won the war
He left the farm forever when
They only kept on one in ten
Landed gentry county snobs
Where were you when they lost their jobs
No-one marched or subsidised
To save a country way of life

It's not straightforward - not everyone trapped in rural or small town poverty turns into a junkie or a drunk - but if you take away the means of making a living from a community then there's a big chance it's going to fall apart. Mostly this is about people leaving (and, as J D Vance described in 'Hillbilly Elegy', taking their dysfunction with them) but the literally left behind see that old working class certainty gone with any work being poorly paid, temporary and wholly without the prospect of that good American - or British, or Italian - life they were promised.

The worst part of all this, whether it's in West Virginia, the Welsh valleys or Sardinia, is that the problems of these places are literally 'out of sight, out of mind'. No-one goes there because there's no reason to do so, nobody sees the collapse of community and the decline of rural life. In the USA, the election of Donald Trump, supposedly on the back of votes from the 'left behind' in places like West Virginia, at least pointed the attention of city dwelling folk to these communities. I've a feeling though that, just as we see everywhere else, grand folk will swan into town write some reports and swish away leaving behind a bit of regeneration cash that will tart up some buildings and fund some social sticking plaster for a year or two.

I guess there's a race on between the despair of drugs or hard drink and the hope of education, social support and an economy that works. Right now the dark side is a long way ahead mostly because there's really no purpose to a place that has no jobs and no prospect of jobs. When we did a master plan for Airedale, the bit of West Yorkshire that runs north-west from Bradford up to Skipton, one of the comments was that the towns looked inwards to their industrial history not up onto the hills to see the salvation of being a beautiful place. Maybe the long term for deep rural places lies in rediscovering the wild and forgetting about digging coal, felling pines or growing corn?

In the meantime, we (that is rich city dwelling folk) have a bit of a duty to pay more attention to these places, as much attention as we give to the problem places in the city. If we don't their pain will continue and so will the anger of many who live there - an anger directed at their city-living lords and masters.

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Marita Koch and Justin Gaitlin - how athletics fails its fans

Like a lot of sports fans I've taken an interest in the ongoing debate across many sports about the use of performance enhancing drugs. I'm not an expert any more than most fans are experts and there's perhaps a need for a broader discussion about the role of drugs in sport. But in the meantime just about every sport has to deal with the problem.

And it matters. It matters because rules matter. Without rules sport changes as an entertainment losing much of what sets it apart from sports-like entertainments such as 'professional wrestling' that are simply well-choreographed shows. The reason rules matter is usually presented as being for the competitors but I see them rather as protecting the sport by ensuring that fans consider the spectacle they pay to watch is fair. So it matters that the rules exist and it matters that those rules are enforced.

Some readers will be old enough to remember Marita Koch and the systematic cheating by the then East Germany:

I am haunted by the photo of East German sprinter Marita Koch smiling in the midst of a group of young fans. The photo was taken in 1986 when Koch was 29 years old and just ten months removed from the most astonishing performance of her long, illustrious career, a world record 47.60 for 400m in which she split 22.4 for 200m and 34.1 for 300m. Since she ran that time almost 30 years ago, only one other woman has come within a second of the record. Even more astounding, only four other women have even broken 49 seconds. It’s as if that 47.60 came from another world, and in a sense it did.

The problem is that athletics can't come to terms with this historic doping - despite plenty of evidence showing how East German athletes were systematically doped in a state-run programme, the international body for athletics, the IAAF, included Marita Koch in its 'Hall of Fame'.

Zoom forward thirty years and we come to the case of Justin Gaitlin - twice the recipient of a ban for using drugs (he either denies or wriggles mightily about both accusations but then so does Marita Koch), Gaitlin has just won the World Championship 100m defeating the freak of nature that is Usain Bolt. My response, like thousands of other athletics fans, was instant - "drugs cheat" we cried, angry that the marvellous thing that is Usain Bolt lost to such a man. Paul Hayward at the Daily Telegraph described the moment Gaitlin received his medal:

Halfway between a cheer and a jeer is an uncomfortable groan - the sort of awkward sound British people make when they would really rather just change the subject. This is noise the London crowd made when Justin Gatlin, who has served two doping bans, stooped to receive his 100m World Championship gold medal...

Others were less kind and called the crowd's response 'boo-ing'. Now I don't know how I'd have responded but I would have found it very difficult to cheer one of the living embodiments of the abject failure of athletics to deal effectively (or at all, some would say) with the persistence of drug cheats in the sport. The unfairness here isn't that the crowd boo-ed but that we - the fans - believe our sport is being corrupted by the greed and vainglory of its governors, some of its competitors and too many officials of national or international bodies.

And the important point here - one that can't be stressed too much or too often - is that sport doesn't belong to players, to officials or to international institutions. Sport belongs to the fans. Without people paying a lot of money to go and watch eight men race, you haven't got a sport. Without fans Usain Bold couldn't earn $33m. And Justin Gaitlin wouldn't be worth more than $6m. The money is in sport because us fans pay to watch and sponsors pay stars to put their brand in front of us fans while we're watching.

And this is why we get angry when competitors cheat. Not just because they're getting lots of money through that cheating but also because by doing so the cheat undermines the integrity of the sport and makes the game unfair. It may be that Gaitlin is redeemed and is now clean and honest (only time and drug tests will tell) but for many fans he's still the cheat who got away with it. Gaitlin is the poster boy of athletics' two-faced attitude to drugs - running the testing and administering bans but then creating a Hall of Fame filled with athletes from the old 'Eastern Bloc' where systematic, state-administered doping programmes are a well-documented fact.

If athletics - and especially the 'blue riband' events like the 100m - wants to avoid ending up like WWE this hypocrisy has to end.

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Does the Psychoactive Substances Bill give drug makers the wrong incentive?

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Today's news included a report on how much cocaine was identified in London's sewers:

Experts said the UK capital was slightly ahead of Amsterdam, with the EU’s drug agency putting the average daily concentration of cocaine in London’s waste water at 737mg per 1,000 people in 2014.

This was the highest level found in an analysis of more than 50 cities. However, the capital fell behind Amsterdam when taking into account weekend samples only.

I'm guessing that this is an indication of just how much cocaine - a Class A illegal drug - is consumed in the capital. Fuelling a huge and powerful criminal enterprise that sees corruption, torture and murder as legitimate tools of business.

This revelation that, despite over 100 years of illegality, cocaine use remains pretty common in our capital city should worry us. Not because the war on drugs is being lost but because the government proposes to ramp up that war with its Psychoactive Substances Bill - a blanket ban on the sale of any substances with reason of giving psychoactive pleasure.

I'm not here making a judgement about the ethics of drug use or drug control but rather a practical observation that the winners in this new clampdown won't be the kids who use drugs (they'll be using less safe and more expensive drugs now) but the criminals who supply those drugs. Nor am I suggesting that further liberalisation of existing drug restrictions is a good idea.

However, if people are going to take psychoactive substances (and they are) then surely we want a policy that keeps the harm those substances do to a minimum? So, given that the 'legal highs' everyone is so agitated about are the products of chemistry rather than horticulture, wouldn't a better bill be one that allows the production and sale of psychoactive substances so long as the risk of use in minimised - perhaps subject to approval similar to regular pharmaceuticals? Such a strategy would mean people partying would face fewer risks and suppliers - those chemists - would have an incentive to produce safer products than the market supplies right now.

The puritans out there might not approve - but then their objection is moral not medical, an objection to chemically-induced pleasure rather than a concern for the health of users - but a policy that encouraged safer supply would probably save more lives that all the bans and restrictions currently advocated by public agencies and politicians who read the Daily Mail and Guardian too much.

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Nine out of ten teachers don't think energy drinks contribute to poor pupil performance

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I've never drunk a whole one of those energy drinks. I had a sip of a Red Bull once and can safely say 'never again' - it made Coca Cola (which I detest) seem appealing. But I understand that they're popular with a lot of people (popular enough for the leading brand to splash millions on racing cars), which has - as night follows day - led to calls for action. For the children of course:

Children are using energy drinks as “legal highs”, making them hyperactive in class, teachers have warned as they called for more restrictions on the drinks.

The NASUWT teaching union is working with the drug charity Swanswell to examine the consumption of drinks such as Red Bull, Monster and Relentless. 

We have here an example of 'teachers say' as justification for a ban or other form of control. The NASUWT research is a poll of teacher opinion not an assessment of fact (nothing wrong with this of course but it does result in 'teachers say' being put on the same footing as 'a properly constructed scientific study has found'). And the worst thing about the reporting is that the researched opinion of teachers is different from what the NASUWT and their 'drugs charity' partner are saying - 87% of teachers do not hold the opinion that children are using energy drinks as "legal highs".

A survey by the NASUWT of around 3,500 teachers found that 13 per cent thought that the excess consumption of caffeine was contributing to poor pupil performance.

There are a whole bunch of reasons why children perform badly at school but most teachers don't see Red Bull as one of them. 

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Friday Fungus: Drug-crazed dinosaurs, the Black Sorcerer and other tales of ergotism

It seems that back in the olden times (about six-thousand years ago some would say) those dinosaurs - the herbivorous ones - weren't just munching on grasses but were also munching on ergot, the famously psychoactive fungus that is the precursor to LSD and even got it's own saintly mania in the form of St Anthony's Fire. Still there's something joyous about drug-crazed dinosaurs:

A study from Oregon State University claims gigantic grass-eating dinosaurs used to get high on a prehistoric form of the psychedelic drug.

The discovery came after researches located a perfectly preserved amber fossil in Myanmar.

Estimated to be 100 million years old, the fossil contained the ergot fungus, which can be turned into the active ingredient in LSD.

Without even being turned into the psychedelic drug, ergot can have poisonous or mind-altering effects on animals that ingest the dark fungi.

Of course we've no idea whether the ergot had any effect on the dinosaurs - they may have tripped happily away or, more likely, experienced the other and painful side-effects from ergot (and indeed plenty of other psychoactive fungi). And this might have been just as deadly for the dinosaurs as it is for people.

Vasoconstriction in the extremities was the cause of the burning pains and gangrene; some cases were so severe that fingers and toes or even hands and feet were lost. This quality of ergot alkaloids was exploited as early as the Middle Ages, when midwives would use a small quantity to speed up labor and reduce bleeding. 

Today - as well as LSD - we've used the ergot to develop effective treatments for migraine and postpartum bleeding along with emerging treatments for dementia.

Since ergot growth will be concentrated we can picture the saurian crisis when they munch through as field of infected grasses - something similar to the Pont-Saint-Esprit poisoning in 1951:

In this small town there was only one bakery and everyone bought bread from it. Strange things started happening. People developed a burning sensation in their limbs, began to hallucinate that they could fly, did strange things to their dogs with forks and in general acted weirdly.

OK some conspiracy theorists claim variously that it was the CIA - or rather a rogue agent called (and this is wonderful) "The Black Sorcerer":

...it seems they were targeted by a top secret, U.S. government programme to test new drugs as potential weapons against enemy populations. New evidence suggests that the bread was deliberately infected with LSD as part of a covert operation mounted by MKULTRA, a shadowy operation run by a renegade, alcoholic intelligence agent called Sidney Gottlieb.

Known as the Black Sorcerer, Gottlieb - whose favourite hobby was stomping round nightclub dance floors despite being born with a club foot - was an American military chemist put in charge of the U.S. government's secret mind control programme, which involved using drugs to kill and disable the enemy.

I have my doubts but it is a rather good tale - better than other theories blaming the bleaching of flour and industrial pesticides. There is one that fingers a different fungus - Aspergillus fumigatus. This is very common, it likes to grow in stores of vegetation so could indeed colonise a grain silo. But the descriptions of the behaviour at Pont-Saint-Esprit really do match descriptions of ergotism (and given its similarity with LSD - the effects of that drug too). However, the give away in the description is the persistent reference to "burning sensations" - this is the physical reaction to the vasoconstriction and not a side effect of LSD.

Finally I would remind you that (it is said) ergotism is why witches fly on broomsticks.

A number of Spanish witches admitted during their inquisitions that they engaged in night-flying. This is because witches would use hallucinogenic drugs to get high and make them believe they were flying. Their way of administering the drugs was rather novel even by modern day standards.

The hallucinogenic they used was called ergot, it came from a mould that grew on rye bread. In high doses ergot is fatal, but small amounts would lead to extremely intense experiences. Therefore, in order to avoid the risk of death, witches looked for alternative ways to absorb the drug quickly into their blood stream.

The most effective way, and the one with the least ill-effects, was through the female genitals. Witches would rub an ointment made with ergot onto the end of their broomsticks and quite literally sit on it.

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Bitcoin and the end of big government...

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There's a great article about Bitcoin over at ASI where Michael Taylor concludes:

The exponential rise of Bitcoin will no doubt start to generate some heat from here on in. It’s only a matter of time before we see the traditional gatekeepers start to cry foul. No doubt we’ll see a lot of anger and rage in the courtrooms. At least in the west. In Africa and Asia we’ll probably see things take off a little quicker. I predict it will only be a few years from now before we see Bitcoin (or other similar digital currencies) emerge as the exchange of choice for the majority of people otherwise denied access to the established money structures. And when that happens, prepare for the world to shake.

There's no doubt that the opportunity to eliminate transaction costs and ensure that the transaction is private is very appealing. Not simply because it makes the word a better place or that it begins to undermine that banking hegemony but also because it disrupts the basis of government finance.

Which is why the apologists for the current finance system and other fans of big government keep talking about drugs. It's all they've got!

Me I hope Taylor is right in his prediction and we can get the monkey of big government off our backs.

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"Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk." - A budget for smugglers

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !

The decision of the Chancellor to raise duties on alcohol and tobacco is, yet again, a great gift to Britain’s smugglers. With each rise in duty, with each imposed cost increase, the damage to legitimate business – pubs, corner shops, small brewers and such all dying, strangled by an unholy alliance between the New Puritan, the treasury mandarin and the criminal.

Last year, Brian Lenihan, then Irish Finance Minister explained all this:

I have decided not to make any changes to excise on tobacco in this Budget because I believe the high price is now giving rise to massive cigarette smuggling. My responsibility as Minister for Finance is to protect the tax base. I have full confidence in the effectiveness of the current multi agency approach but early in the New Year I want to explore what further measures we may need to stem the illegal flow of cigarettes into this country.

But let’s explore a little further and remember that this isn’t just about cigarettes but, in the UK, concerns beer as well. Pete Brown, beer writer extraordinaire, wrote today about the problems with beer and observed that people have shifted from fine ale to cheap wine and cheaper spirits:

Liver disease is increasing because people are switching from beer to stronger drinks.  We already know this though, because this has been true of every major alcoholism epidemic in history.  In the gin epidemic of the eighteenth century, beer was part of the solution, not the problem, as the immortal cartoons by Hogarth show.  It should be seen as that today.

But why is this? And why has the big drop in alcohol consumption been in on-sales – drinking in the pub – rather than off-sales – drinking at home? Firstly, the big brewers have shifted their attention from the boozer to the fridge – their volume now comes from people buying boxes of 24 bottles rather than going to the pub and drinking six pints.

Secondly, the smoking ban – people have started drinking at home or at a pre-arranged ‘smoky-drinky’ in some friend’s garage.

And thirdly, the price of booze makes smuggling and illegal production worthwhile – and you’re not going to get those products in the pub. And, if you’re smuggling, it makes sense to concentrate on the strong stuff which means wine and spirits rather than beer. The shift from beer to stronger drinks isn’t simply down to choice, it’s down to an ever larger chunk of the market being in the hands of criminals.

Kipling’s poem rather romanticises the smuggler but the true picture isn’t like that at all. These smugglers are the same sort who’ve been in the illegal import game for years, they already operate and control a multi-billion pound business doing just that:

An online report published by the Home Office in 2006 has estimated the UK drugs market to be worth £4.645bn in 2003/4^[8], with a margin of error of +/- £1.154bn.

And, as we know, the people who run this smuggling business are prepared to use murder as a business tool.

So tell me New Puritans, would you prefer your daughter to get cigarettes from the corner shop or from the same man who sells cocaine, heroin and crack?

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Friday Fungus: More about mushrooms and depression

A while ago I reported on the ongoing research showing that Psilocybe mushrooms have a beneficial impact on depressive conditions:

...the immediate effects of psilocybin are not as important for clinical benefit as the longer-term effects. That's because psilocybin increases the expression of genes and signalling proteins associated with nerve growth and connectivity, he says: "We think that the antidepressant effects of psilocybin may be due to a possible increase of factors that activate long-term neuroplasticity."

Now more evidence is coming to light about these beneficial effects:

Far from expanding your mind, the hallucinogenic chemical found in magic mushrooms induces widespread decreases in brain activity, researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Psilocybin has been revered for centuries for its ability to induce mystical experiences, and has potential therapeutic value for various psychiatric conditions. The drug is known to activate serotonin receptors, but how this produces its effects is little understood.

And this reduction in brain activity is what helps with depression:

Depression involves hyperactivity in the mPFC (medial prefrontal cortex), leading to the pessimistic outlook and pathological brooding characteristic of the condition, so mPFC deactivation could alleviate those symptoms.

Which all rather begs a question! Why, when these mushrooms have killed no-one, cause no long-term health problems and may even be beneficial, did the UK government make possession of them a criminal offence in 2005?

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This is what they push to help you stop smoking...

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...and it's pretty scary:

Varenicline, meanwhile, already carries warnings, as a result of Health Canada advisories issued in 2008, 2009 and 2010, concerning potential serious neuropsychiatric adverse events such as depression, agitation, hostility, behavior changes, suicidal ideation and suicide. 

All that plus:

The meta-analysis of data from 14 double-blind randomized clinical trials found that people taking varenicline had a 72% higher risk of adverse heart-related events than those on placebo.

So when your Doctor tries to prescribe you Champix (what Pfizer call this drug in the UK), ask him or her whether they really think it's safe.

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That's what comes of fixing prices - shortages

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And it works for life-saving drugs too:

Health minister Simon Burns blamed dwindling stocks of potentially life-saving asthma, cancer and diabetes medication on companies selling to lucrative export markets.

Now I'm guessing that those exported drugs aren't being used to make pasta sauce or children's toys but are used for their life-saving purpose. So the number of people made better by the drugs hasn't changed, just that fewer of them are under the NHS.

That's what comes from fixing prices, Simon. For heaven's sake, you're Tory MP, you should know this stuff!

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Friday Fungus: which came first, the hippy or the mushroom?

These aren't magic mushrooms

I’ve noted before the emerging research into the positive effects of magic mushrooms and today I’m pleased to bring you details of some further research shedding light on these effects – this time from researchers at John Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore:

Psilocybin, the drug in “magic mushrooms,” helps many people become more open, creative, and curious after they take a single high dose, a new study shows.

It would seem that this isn’t a short-term effect either with the doses of psilocybin seeming to permanently alter personality. And the personality trait promoted by the magic mushrooms is “openness”:

Openness relates to the ability to see and appreciate beauty, to imagine, to be aware of our own and other people’s feelings, and to be curious and creative.

My thoughts immediately turned to hippies – all that beauty, the empathy and the creative spirit. It seems magic mushrooms fit perfectly with the popular view (at least for us non-hippies) of brown rice munching, kaftan wearers!

While the study has limitations, it does show that the use of drugs has an effect on personality. This effect may be a problem in some circumstances but we should not put aside the potential for treatments involving psilocybin in the management of some mental health conditions.

But more importantly...

...which came first, the hippy or the mushroom?

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Ah yes, that epidemic of teenage drinking?

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Or maybe not:

There have been falls in the numbers of teenagers drinking, smoking and taking drugs in England, a survey suggests. Between 2009 and 2010 the percentage of 11-15 year olds who had tried alcohol fell from 51% to 45%. And 27% of pupils said they had smoked at least once, while 18% had tried drugs. The NHS Information Centre figures also suggested "a shrinking number think that drinking and drunkenness is acceptable".

Shows - yet again - that the strategy of having aliberal and open approach to drugs and alcohol works. We don't need minimum prices, advertising bans or any of the other "denormalisation" tactics of the New Puritans.

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So it might be something other than the drink?

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Data from the Health Protection Agency suggests around 4,200 people could need a transplant owing to serious damage to their liver, with many unaware they have the condition at present.

Ah, yes! It's that "pandemic of binge-drinking" the doctors are on about isn't it?

It would seem not...

Experts estimate around 216,000 people in the UK are living with chronic hepatitis C, many of whom are currently undiagnosed. People can catch the disease through contact with the blood - and less commonly the bodily fluids - of an infected person.

Those who share needles and use unsterile drugs equipment are particularly at risk, although people who had a blood transfusion before 1991 or received blood products before 1986 have a higher chance, as well as those having treatments abroad.

Sharing toothbrushes, razors and scissors also heightens the risk, as does having tattoos.

So not just the drink then?

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Ars longa, vita brevis...(a thought about Amy Winehouse)

Much will be said about the death of Amy Winehouse. I think of her friends, her family and what we will miss of her genius – of her wonderful voice. Others will take the chance to lecture us on the evils of drugs – to wag fingers and make judgmental statements about Amy Winehouse’s values.

Instead let’s think of just one thing – in her short, painful life, Amy Winehouse left something behind. In thirty years time – maybe longer – people will still listen to her songs.

When I heard the news my first thoughts were of others who took the same path to immortality in death – Jimi Hendrix, Phil Lynott and the incomparable Charlie Parker. And, for all the tragedy of early death, I can turn to my music or visit YouTube and find these great artists’ legacy – captured for all time.

Just as James Dean left a legacy of film and image, as Van Gogh bequeathed the brightness of his painting – these musicians still inspire us with their music. And, as we get up to dance or lean back in our chair to let the sound wash over us, do we think about their tragic life? Or do we just enjoy the bounty they left behind?

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New Puritans aren't all saints...

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Prompted by a comment on an earlier post:

Please note that professor Nutt has a patent for an alcohol replacement drink which is based on Valium. 

I looked into this...

An alcohol substitute that gives the drinker the pleasant feelings of tipsiness without an unpleasant hangover, is being developed by researchers.

The team, led by drugs expert Professor David Nutt, has developed the drink using chemicals related to the sedative Valium.

It works on the nerves in a similar way to alcohol causing feelings of well-being and relaxation.

I didn't see the press release but, judging by the report - and the focus on the 'hangover' - it seems to me that Professor Nutt might be focusing on the dollars rather than the health benefits!

And - in Professor Nutt's terms - Valium is really addictive:

Valium depresses the nervous system much like alcohol and is abused by all segments of society. Valium is both physically and psychologically addicting and as is considered one of the toughest addictions to break. With chronic use, its abuse potential is high. Withdrawal symptoms can be seen after only 2 or 3 days of repeated use. 

So we replace a drug produced by businesses that don't sponsor medical research with a drug produced by businesses that do sponsor medical research?

I'm sticking with the beer, Professor!

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Tenets of the New Puritans #4: Bad lifestyle is an illness - and the doctors can help you

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Part of the New Puritan attack on our lifestyle choices depends on the characterisation of us – or those of us who choose to smoke, drink and eat fatty, salt-laden foods – as victims rather than as free individuals making personal choices.

Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars every year to get children and teens to use tobacco. They need 5,000 new smokers everyday, because some smokers quit or die. Today your child learned how advertising tries to get youth to smoke.

And…

Disturbing new marketing methods are being deployed by food firms to ensure youngsters develop an appetite for products high in salt, sugar and fat.

Or…

Add to these other forms of advertising (magazine ads, billboards, Web sites and brand-related clothing and products), signage at sporting events, sponsorship of sports and TV & radio programs....... and most young people will have seen approximately 100,000 alcohol ads by the time they turn 18.

The message is clear, the companies that make cigarettes, brew and distil alcohol and sell hamburgers are enticing us into dangerous addictions. The sheer weight of advertising leaves us with no choice, we are drawn inexorably towards these products and the counter-weight of health promotion and protection does not work. We are victims, we are ill.

This means, of course, that there is an answer – not just the regulation and control of the companies serving us with bad habits but the development, indeed the medicalisation, of these sad addictions. This has been dubbed the Nutt Solution after the former government drugs advisor of that name.

Professor Nutt doesn’t like alcohol:

Last week I attended a discussion group chaired by the Observer's health correspondent Denis Campbell where one of the other experts, a public health doctor, asserted that alcohol should be treated differently from tobacco (and by inference other drugs) because there is no safe dose of tobacco whereas alcohol is safe until a person's drinking gets to "unsafe" levels. Its health benefits for the cardiovascular system are also often used to support the claim that in low doses alcohol is safe, for how else could it be health-promoting?

The myth of a safe level of drinking is a powerful claim. It is one that many health professionals appear to believe in and that the alcohol industry uses to defend its strategy of making the drug readily available at low prices. However, the claim is wrong and the supporting evidence flawed.

Which on the face of it doesn’t fit well with his supposedly liberal views on drugs:

Nutt had criticised politicians for "distorting" and "devaluing" the research evidence in the debate over illicit drugs.

Arguing that some "top" scientific journals had published "horrific examples" of poor quality research on the alleged harm caused by some illicit drugs, the Imperial College professor called for a new way of classifying the harm caused by both legal and illegal drugs.

Until you realise that people like Professor Nutt want the medical profession to control the distribution of ‘drugs’ (and such people include alcohol and nicotine in this distribution). And Professor Nutt actively promotes misinformation about alcohol through education:

The teaching module shows the students how the drinks industry makes its own voluntary codes and them blatantly ignores them. It shows how the Portman Group [that has responsibility for alcohol education] whilst appearing to be concerned about alcohol harm is actually dominated by the drinks industry. Also it is revealed that the public health message in the UK is left to the drinks industry. The myths surrounding alcohol are discussed and then the students are asked to make up their own mind about the issues. Profit motives of the drinks industry, the tax income and political agendas are exposed and compared with the cost to society, mortality and shortening of life caused by alcohol use.

Professor Nutt is the most prominent figure – there are others such as former Liberal Democrat MP, Evan Harris – is a campaign to liberalise drugs laws and tighten laws on drinking so as to, in effect, medicalise the distribution. A process we see beginning to happen with smoking:

The parliament in Reykjavik is to debate a proposal that would outlaw the sale of cigarettes in normal shops. Only pharmacies would be allowed to dispense them – initially to those aged 20 and up, and eventually only to those with a valid medical certificate.

The important fact here is that, with drug distribution under the control of doctors, it opens up the market for pleasure drugs to the pharmaceuticals industry. Indeed, the market for nicotine replacement therapy worldwide already exceed £3bn – and we can expect this to increase substantially as the industry targets countries such as China, India and Indonesia.

It is but a short step from this position with smoking (and no doubt currently illegal drugs) to a similar position on alcohol – registered addicts only able to purchase alcohol with a doctor’s certificate. And a new market for “alcohol replacement therapies” produced and marketed by the big pharmaceuticals businesses.

In the food industry this process of medicalisation is already well advanced – witness all the adverts telling us of Omega 3, good bacteria and reduced cholesterol plus the enormous market for vitamin supplements. Again the medical profession has attacked these adverts – not because the products are unhealthy but because they amount to self-prescription. We can see the EU’s regulation of vitamin products as part of this process with doctors and the pharmaceuticals industry combining with government to destroy a successful industry that competes with them.

Some of the most popular vitamin and mineral pills are likely to be banned after a vote in the European Parliament this week.

Some of the most popular vitamin and mineral pills are likely to be banned after a vote in the European Parliament this week.

The vote, on Tuesday, is expected to put the finishing touches to a new EU law designed to crack down on the sale of the pills. Critics say that the law – which has already been approved by EC governments, including Britain, and the European Commission – will plunge countless people into distress, and put hundreds of health food shops out of business.

The law – which opponents believe is being pushed through at the behest of multinational drug companies wanting to stamp on competition from alternative products – is being promoted by the commission as a safety measure. But the commission itself admits that "scientific research has recently established real or potential benefits to health" that could result from some of them.

We see in this how the message of “safety” combines with the interests of powerful lobbies (the medical profession and pharmaceuticals) and the desire of New Puritans to ensure pleasure is purposeful.  And at the core of this is the view – put forward by Professor Nutt, that some people are addicts, trapped into dependence from their first drag or their first sip:

Although most people do not become addicted to alcohol on their first drink, a small proportion do. As a clinical psychiatrist who has worked with alcoholics for more than 30 years, I have seen many people who have experienced a strong liking of alcohol from their very first exposure and then gone on to become addicted to it. We cannot at present predict who these people will be, so any exposure to alcohol runs the risk of producing addiction in some users.

Note that the good professor wraps his bias up in science – there is no evidence to support his contention – and plays the “I’m a doctor” card to provide support for his mission against alcohol. These potential addicts – who could be anyone – require protection and, since we don’t know who they are everyone is at risk. Ergo everyone should be protected – alcohol, like cigarettes, must be controlled.

By the doctors of course!

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