Why won't people face the evidence on legalising cannabis?

We filter out information that does not fit our exsiting biases

A new study by the Treasury has revealed that legalising cannabis would have huge economic benefits for the UK. The move would raise hundreds of millions of pounds in taxes and ease the burden on the criminal justice system.

This comes on the back of growing evidence that cannabis – like many recreational drugs – is often no more dangerous than alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Even where studies identify links between cannabis use at a young age and mental illness, such dangers would be better addressed in a regulated market with proper health warnings and checks on the age of buyers.

David Nutt

But at the level of government, reasonable debate often doesn’t seem to come into it. In 2009 Professor David Nutt was sacked as a government adviser for comments he had made in an academic journal about the dangers of ecstasy. Nutt wrote that taking the drug is no more dangerous than horse-riding. Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary at the time, ordered Nutt to apologise.

The problem wasn’t that Nutt wasn’t telling the truth – he was, statistically speaking – but that his remarks were out of step with government policy.

But this should come as no surprise. In recent years a raft of studies has shown how much we overestimate the rational mind and our ability to analyse information objectively. In his book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, Daniel Kahneman explains how the brain manages the vast amount of information it is forced to process by adapting it to preconceived ideas of how the world works. Information that produces "cognitive dissonance" – stuff that doesn’t make instinctive sense – is filtered out and rejected. Information that produces "cognitive ease" – stuff that confirms your preconceptions – is accepted and applied. Kahneman even observed that cognitive ease made the subjects’ pupils dilate. Proof that I’m not the only one who loves being right.

Dan Kahan

Even if people are asked to reflect on a piece of information, they still go out of their way to achieve that blissful cognitive ease. In a 2013 study, Yale Law professor Dan Kahan tried to understand why people reach false conclusions. Kahan provided test subjects with fictional statistics on the impact of gun control on crime rates. Some of the data suggested that gun control reduced crime rates; other data showed it had no positive impact.

But because Kahan presented the numbers in such a way that it wasn’t immediately obvious what the data really indicated, subjects – even highly educated ones – failed to reach the correct conclusions based on the evidence in front of them. Instead of taking the time to do some basic sums, many worked entirely on their own prejudices. Regardless of which way the evidence pointed, Liberals would conclude that gun control works; Conservatives would conclude that it didn’t.

But we are also as credulous as we are stubborn. Writing in the New York Times, Noreena Hertz, a professor of economics at UCL, describes an Emory University experiment from 2009:

“A group of adults was asked to make a decision while contemplating an expert’s claims, in this case, a financial expert. A functional M.R.I. scanner gauged their brain activity as they did so. The results were extraordinary: when confronted with the expert, it was as if the independent decision-making parts of many subjects’ brains pretty much switched off. They simply ceded their power to decide to the expert.”

For the financial expert, substitute our politicians. If you’re a hard-line euro-sceptic, Nigel Farage is your expert. If you’re in favour of legalising certain drugs, it’s probably Nick Clegg. In other words, we can exchange facts and figures all we want. But don’t expect people to actually listen: we’ve already made up our mind.


Why won't people face the evidence on legalising cannabis?

Effects of Schedule I drug laws on neuroscience research and treatment innovation

Many psychoactive drugs are used recreationally, particularly by young people. This use and its perceived dangers have led to many different classes of drugs being banned under national laws and international conventions. Indeed, the possession of cannabis, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA; also known as ecstasy) and psychedelics is stringently regulated. An important and unfortunate outcome of the controls placed on these and other psychoactive drugs is that they make research into their mechanisms of action and potential therapeutic uses — for example, in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder — difficult and in many cases almost impossible.

Effects of Schedule I drug laws on neuroscience research and treatment innovation

Ecstasy and cannabis should be freely available for study, says David Nutt

Former government adviser says regulations make it too difficult to research psychoactive drugs with potential medical uses

The classification system that makes drugs such as cannabis and MDMA (ecstasy) illegal has prevented scientists from properly researching their possible therapeutic uses for conditions such as schizophrenia and depression, according to the government's former chief adviser on drugs.
Professor David Nutt said the UK's laws on misuse of drugs needed to be rewritten to more accurately reflect their relative harms and called for a regulated approach to making drugs such as MDMA and cannabis available for medical and research purposes.

"Regulations, which are arbitrary, actually make it virtually impossible to research these drugs," said Nutt. "The effect these laws have had on research is greater than the effects that [George] Bush stopping stem cell research has had because it's been going on since the 1960s."
Almost all the drugs that could help scientists to understand brain phenomena such as consciousness, perception, mood and psychosis are illegal, including ketamine, cannabis, MDMA and psychedelic drugs such as magic mushrooms. Nutt said there had been almost no work in this field because the government made it difficult for scientists to access the drugs.
A Home Office spokesperson told the Guardian: "The Home Office licensing regime enables bona fide institutions to carry out scientific research on controlled substances while ensuring necessary safeguards are in place."
Nutt, who is professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, made his comments at a briefing in London on Wednesday to mark the launch of his book, Drugs Without the Hot Air.
He is used to being a thorn in the side of the authorities when it comes to drugs regulation. In 2009, he was sacked by the then health secretary, Alan Johnson, from his post as chair of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for publicly stating that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
Researchers who want to experiment on illegal drugs, which come under the schedule 1 list of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, must apply for a licence from the Home Office. This takes a year to approve and costs thousands of pounds. Researchers are also required to have secure storage facilities and are subject to random inspections by police.
"[The rules] completely limit research at the real cutting edge of science," said Nutt. "I wonder how many other opportunities have been lost in the last 40 years with important drugs like MDMA, with its empathetic qualities, drugs like LSD in terms of treating addictions, cannabis for all the possible uses and insights which it might have for things like schizophrenia. All of those opportunities have been wasted because it is virtually impossible, when a drug's illegal, to work with it."
One of the best treatments for people with post-traumatic stress disorder is to get them to relive their trauma and then teach them how to delete or somehow control the memories. "But many people are so traumatised that, once the memories come back, they just dissociate and can't hold it long enough in order to deal with it," said Nutt.
"There's been one study in the US showing that MDMA, by damping down the negative emotions associated with the trauma, allow people to get into the therapy and get better. We're very keen to set up a similar trial in the UK. The paradox will be that, even if we can show it could work, no one could use it in the UK because no doctor would have the licence.
"LSD was trialled as a treatment for alcoholism in the 1960s and Nutt said the "evidence is that it's as good as anything we've got, maybe better. But no one's using it because it's too difficult."
Nutt said that the lack of scientific research was a direct result of the UK's arbitrary classification of drugs. "Drugs are drugs – they differ in terms of their brain effects but, fundamentally, they're all psychotropic agents and it is arbitrary whether we choose to keep alcohol legal or ban cannabis or make tobacco legal and ban ecstasy. Those are not scientific decisions, they're political or moral or religious decisions."
According to Nutt, research into the effects of drugs would lead to a more rational approach. He said the laws around the misuse of drugs needed to be rewritten, after a thorough, independent review of the harms involved.
"I'm not in favour of legalisation, a free open market of all drugs – that does lead to more use," he said. "We need regulated access across the board."
This would mean drugs such as cannabis, MDMA or PZP being made available for treatments through a pharmacy. Patients could be issued with a card and given access to an annual supply, he said. "Then at least you would know what you were getting."

Ecstasy and cannabis should be freely available for study, says David Nutt

09/11/2009 I politici al test antidoping

Egregio direttore, c'è un gran parlare attorno al test "antidoping" ai politici. Un test che, francamente, trovo inutile. Perchè un politico che facesse bene il suo lavoro,ma fa uso di stupefacenti, dovrebbe essere discriminato? Si può dire che i politici che sbandierano tanto la "verginità" sulla droga, lavorino meglio di quelli che magari ne fanno uso? Perchè dovrei condividere il pensiero del politico di turno che non fa uso di droga, ma è corrotto fino al midollo?
La relazione tra classe politica e malavita è ormai un dato di fatto. Questa relazione è tenuta "viva" dal rapporto economico instauratosi tra i due soggetti.
Se infatti la malavita si finanzia prevalentemente dal traffico di droga (stimato attorno al settanta per cento dei proventi dei traffici illegali), i soldi con i quali si corrompe la politica derivano,quindi, prevalentemente dal trafico di sostanze illegali.
La copertura della politica a questo "accordo" è il proibizionismo di facciata. Quello dei duri e puri contro la droga, ma che venderebbero la moglie pur di accaparrarsi voti, anche se provenienti da ambienti dubbi. In questo caso non vendono la moglie, ma rinnegano l' evidenza: così la droga deve essere illegale e loro devono sembrare "puliti".
Se un tempo esisteva l' omertà sull' esistenza della malavita, adesso esiste l' omertà sui rapporti tra politica, malavita e guerra alla droga. Lo sconfitto? Il cittadino. Che continua a credere che la "droga" deve rimanere illegale.
Non si distingue così tra droghe. e si rinnegano anche le conoscenze scientifiche. E' il caso accaduto in Inghilterra. Come ricorda il quotidiano britannico The Times,dopo il licenziamento di David Nutt, presidente della commissione consultiva del governo britannico sulla regolamentazione delle droghe. La motivazione? Licenziato per aver espresso un'opinione sulla maggiore pericolosità di alcool e tabacco rispetto ad alcune droghe, droghe non in linea con la politica del governo.