| Pete Glen, manager of The Corner, a city centre project that offers health and information advice to young people, said, “Professor Nutt was just doing his job which is advising from a scientific point of view. It just seems to me the Government has got it wrong.
“If you have got advisers and they are doing their job and they are well respected, you need to listen.
“The reality is there are large numbers of young people experimenting with legal and illegal drugs. That is fact. I think it is not helpful when you have politicians unwilling to listen to the scientific basis, the scientific rationale and link that with the social realities.”
However, Prof Nutt’s “crude” statements that ecstasy and cannabis are less dangerous than horse riding are unlikely to help Dundee youngsters, he said.
“Not a lot of young people coming to The Corner are riding horses. That piece of information is not really helpful.”
Addressing young people’s questions about drugs and alcohol is an increasing part of the work going on at The Corner.
Asked if differing views on the classification of specific drugs was confusing for young people, Mr Glen said, “It is not helpful at all.
“Young people are looking to professional adults for information, facts and sometimes advice. We have had a growing number of young people coming in to ask about drugs and alcohol in the last year.”
Mr Glen said that when speaking to young people about drugs, that had to be done within the context of their experience and should not be “over reactive”.
He said Prof Nutt’s comparisons of the dangers of drug taking and horse riding were “very crude statements” that did not look at the context of horse riding and ecstasy. “We have an approach that looks at risk in a very general sense of lifestyle,” said Mr Glen. “You cannot just look at one part of that. You have to look at young people’s lifestyle overall.”
He said information and learning had to be “relevant”, but work at The Corner was also about getting the “strong message” across about the dangers and risk young people could place themselves in using legal or illegal substances.
“I think adults, who are the decision makers, arguing about which drugs are most dangerous, almost having a sparring competition about that, is not helpful because the reality is we have to look at the scientific facts, we have to look at the social issues and have to marry these up and come to reasonable and sensible conclusions.”
Dr Brian Kidd, NHS Tayside’s lead clinician for substance misuses, said more people die every year riding horses than die taking ecstasy “by a long shot”.
The Dundee-based psychiatrist said David Nutt was “absolutely right” when he made the statement about ecstasy being safer than horse riding.
Dr Kidd said Profesor Nutt was “a very influential and eminent person in the addictions field”, who was internationally recognised.
“His views were based on scientific evidence.
“There is no doubt that what he is articulating is something which would reflect the academic view about how we deal with substance misuse in this country,” said Dr Kidd.
Scientific research showed cannabis was “an extremely safe drug” in terms of the physical dangers associated with taking it.
However, Dr Kidd was adamant that if any child of his said they were about to start taking drugs, he would say, “No, you are not.” |
