Fear, lies and pseudo-science

Home Secretary: "Fuck you, science!"

So, the inevitable has happened. The government yesterday announced that their agenda on drugs is being set by the corporate media, when Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the media he will rush through a ban on Mephedrone in the few days left before parliament breaks up for the election.

How quickly can newspapers and the privately owned media write a government’s policy for them? In the case of Mephedrone, it’s taken just 5 months.

The Mephedrone moral panic got started in earnest when Gabrielle Price died. The media lied and lied again about the tragic death of this 14 year old at a party. They quoted anonymous neighbours, claiming that she’d been at a party taking Mephedrone and Ketamine, and that these had caused her death. Of course, to legally protect themselves, the headline had “took Miaow Miaow” in inverted commas, so that the newspapers didn’t have to take responsibility for the lies they were posting.

What they didn’t report was that the coroner concluded Gabrielle Price died of natural causes, following an infection she’d been suffering. Sussex Police announced there would be no inquest into her death, as it was not a mystery. It was NOT a drug related death.

As we’ve already reported before, this pattern was repeated again and again, as death after death was reported as “linked to Mephedrone.” Yet only one death has directly been attributed to Mephedrone through toxicology reports, and that man was also found to have other Class A drugs in his house. Most of the other deaths that have been blamed on Mephedrone were of people who had also been taking cocktails of methadone, alcohol, coke and other drugs. There is not a single other death from Mephedrone proven in the UK. FACT. In the same time, literally thousands of people have died as a result of legal drugs alcohol and tobacco, which NOBODY thinks it would be a good idea to ban.

Inverted commas means-"this is lies"

Other ridiculous scare stories were peddled, such as the total fabrication that “teachers are having to hand Mephedrone back after confiscating it in school.” Again, a total lie. This particular tall tale was pushed with the co-operation of headteacher Mike Stewart from Torquay. He was quoted again and again as saying that teachers would be forced to hand back confiscated Mephedrone because it wasn’t illegal. He NEVER said that THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Because it never has.

Imagine you’re in school and a teacher finds you with a white powder. Do you actually imagine they would give you that back at the end of the day? Absolute bollocks. Do we really believe that the head/rector (who would inevitably be brought in as part of such a scenario) would just take a student’s word for it that the powder wasn’t coke or speed? No, what they would do is phone the police. Devon and Cornwall Police felt the necessity to issue a press release affirming that if they seized a white powder, they would hold on to it. They even went so far as to say that if the substance was found to be Mephedrone, they would still destroy it rather than give it back!

As this whole sorry affair rolled towards its conclusion, there could have been no doubt in anyone’s mind that, in an election year, all parties would not have the courage to stand up to the lies and bullying of the massive profit-making corporations that own papers like The Sun. These completely cynical companies, who are interested only in greater profit for themselves, realised long ago they can make a lot of money by scaring people. To do this, they have completely exploited the tragic deaths of numerous people, and in the process pulled grieving families into a political crusade.

In the last year any pretense that government policy on drugs is made through scientific information has been totally discredited. First the government sacked Professor David Nutt because they didn’t like him publicly telling the truth about drugs like cannabis and ecstasy. Numerous other government science advisers resigned in protest. Then, this weekend, Dr Polly Taylor resigned in protest at new government guidelines that told scientists they “must not breach trust”, i.e. tell the truth if it contradicts government policy.

The Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs is required by law to give evidence before a drug can be banned. Since the resignation of Dr. Taylor the committee has been inquorate, that is, according to their own rules they are not properly constituted as a committee. Therefore they aren’t able to make a proper recommendation. But quickly after she resigned we heard that “Home Office lawyers are confident” that they could move forward with the ban. Translation – the government know they’re on dodgy territory, so they had to get lawyers to back them up.

Normally the ACMD will have several meetings about a drug, before drawing up a draft report to go to the full committee, which will then go to the Home Secretary. After the Home Secretary responds, it goes back to the committee for further consultation and research. The whole process should take at least a year and a half. The process that led up to the reclassification of cannabis was after a painstaking period of two and a half years research. And even then, the government IGNORED the committee’s advice, and went ahead with reclassifying cannabis as a class B drug!

Cover of government guidelines to scientists

Alan Johnson yesterday claimed he was following the advice of the committee by banning Mephedrone. What he should have said is that he was following the very preliminary findings of a depleted committee which has been unable to function properly over the last few months following the sacking of Prof. Nutt. Most of the members will not have seen the report on Mephedrone until yesterday, when they were told to approve it and hand it on to the government. There has been no proper scientific assessment of Mephedrone yet whatsoever.

Parliament in Westminster has about 3-4 days left to meet before the election is called. This period is known as the “wash-up”, when all parties co-operate to rush through bills that they all agree on, with virtually no democratic or public scrutiny. One of the measures pushed through this procedure will be the classification of Mephedrone. A complete victory for the corporate media, and a complete failure for science and the public good.

Something must be done!!!1!!11AAARGGGGHHH

Drugs prohibition doesn’t work. It is a cancer at the heart of our society, which makes drugs more dangerous than they should be, means there is no way to regulate the harm that they cause people, and enriches huge criminal capitalist organisations. People have taken drugs since the first evolution of humans. They are not deterred by laws passed by unscientific and ignorant governments. This idiotic government decision is supported by the entire mainstream political process, regardless of the fact that Mephedrone is far more likely to do harm when it’s illegal compared to when it’s legal. Not to mention the masses of free advertising it’s had in the last few months. It will also further discredit the government in the eyes of young people, meaning they are even less likely to listen to drugs advice from any kind of authority figure.

I’m proud to be part of one of the only political organisations that has told the truth on this issue, and stood by science instead of lies and hype.

“A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when “[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.” Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as “moral entrepreneurs”, while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as “folk devils.” Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo. The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.” (From Wikipedia.)