Ecstasy causes violence - official!

The occasional hack-job newspaper story does try to claim that use of Ecstasy leads to violent behaviour on the part of the users, but personally I've seen zero evidence for this and much evidence against it. My old mates at the Daily Mail, however, have come up with a new twist on this line, with a story of a father who went ape-shit after being told that his 18-year-old daughter had been dropping pills at a nearby private party in October 2007. Charges that 55-year-old Geoffrey Atkins attacked two men and was in possession of a knife were dropped, but he has just been convicted of assaulting two girls - both the same age as his daughter - one of whom he actually bit on the cheek. Yeah, very civilised. Incredibly, though (or maybe not), the judge reckoned that businessman and local parish councillor Atkins's behaviour, "was borne out of a 'natural concern' for the safety of his daughter," and let him walk free with a 12-month conditional discharge and £200 in court costs.

And the daughter? Despite the Mail inevitably invoking the memory of Leah Betts, it turns out she was only drunk at the time. This seems to have subsequently become something of a hobby for her, since she was given an ASBO in November 2008, banning her from being in such a state in public for two years. Classy.

Priorities

A rather amusing story on the BBC News website today, telling how a father found four claimed Ecstasy tablets inside the case of a secondhand console game:

"Richard Thornhill, 34, found the drugs under the front cover of X-Box game Grand Theft Auto IV, which he bought from Gamestation in Cheltenham.

Mr Thornhill said: "What made me feel the most distraught was the fact we let our 12-year-old play the game." "

Clearly, though, Mr Thornhill wasn't so concerned about letting his 12-year-old play an exceptionally violent 18-certificate game, in which drug-dealing plays no small part!

Fame at last!

Today - much to my amazement - I had an e-mail printed in the Daily Mail today. Amazement, because I sent it (on Monday 9 February) in response to their continued less-than-neutral coverage of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs's then pending reappriasal of the current legal status of MDMA (Ecstasy):

"Unsurprisingly, Melanie Phillips scoffs at the by-no-means-new comparison between the risk of death from taking Ecstasy, and that of horse-riding, but is it so absurd?

For many years, the "official" estimate for Ecstasy has been half a million instances of use each week (sometimes misreported as "half a million pills taken" - although it has been suggested that the real figure is at least four times as high). The total number of deaths in 2006 where Ecstasy was mentioned on death certifcates was 48, but the number of where it was the only drug mentioned was 26 (i.e. in 22 cases, other drugs were involved)**. Assuming half a million uses a week puts the risk of any one instance of use being linked to a death at between 1 in a million (Ecstasy alone) and 1.85 in a million (Ecstasy plus at least one other drug). Deaths from Ecstasy alone are inariably due to hyperthermia - overheating as a result of dancing in hot venues for prologed periods - or, in a small number of cases (such as Leah Betts), water-intoxication from drinking too much in an attempt to combat the same overheating. Both are avoidable and therefore inherently more attributable to ignorance on the part of users than Ecstasy itself.

Figures for horse-riding fatalities are hard to come by, but one study in 1999 showed that over a five year period there were 62 deaths for 39 million participations - a fatality risk of 1.59 in a million for any single event, clearly comparable to Ecstasy. In comparison, fishing, swimming/diving, and boating were all riskier than horse-riding.

The simple reality is that in purely numerical terms, Ecstasy is not particularly deadly, and is arguably as safe or safer than many legal and socially-acceptable hobbies and pastimes. Yes, it can and does kill unpredictably in a tiny minority of cases, but then so do peanuts. Some people develop mental problems after using Ecstasy, but the same can be said of alcohol. Ecstasy use may cause damage to certain internal organs, but so do cigarettes and alcohol.

Most importantly, the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of people who will use Ecstasy this weekend - and every other weekend - will not see any other users around them suffering any ill effects at all, let alone fatal ones. In the face of users' own personal experience and observations, government and media propaganda that relies on exagerrating the fatal risk as the primary reason for not taking Ecstasy is inherently flawed and doomed to failure."

As was widely expected, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith chose emotion and playing to the political gallery - rather than the results of scientific investigation - and ignored the Council's recommendation that MDMA be downgraded to Class B.

Yikes! Friday the 13th!

Probably not the best day to start anything, let alone a blog, but here goes....