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LAUREN BOOTH: Honest Professor Nutt ...he makes much more sense than "Just Say No" Zammo 

My name is Lauren and I am a junkie. An addict to harmful substances, according to the Government's former drugs tsar, Professor David Nutt.

He was sacked on Friday for claiming that cannabis and Ecstasy are less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes in a new 'index of harm' he compiled to warn the public of the relative dangers of various substances.

Thanks to this list I have gone from being a social drinker and smoker to a habitual user of the fifth and ninth most harmful drugs available in Britain.

According to Nutt, who was chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the nicotine I inhale and the Australian merlot I drink most evenings are more 'potentially harmful' than cannabis and Ecstasy. So, naturally, I was furious with his statements.

Furious, yes - because it's taken this long for someone to have the guts to take the legal-illegal drug argument by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake. . . .

Research in recent years has analysed the link between the harmful effects of drugs relative to their current classification.

Alcohol, solvents and tobacco (all unclassified drugs) have repeatedly been rated as more dangerous than Ecstasy, and LSD (class A drugs). If the current ABC system is retained, alcohol would – and should – be rated a class A drug and tobacco class B.

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London, has said Nutt’s controversial briefing paper gave an insight into what drugs policy might look like – if it was based on research evidence rather than political or moral positioning.

Then, Home Secretary, Alan Johnson did what Home Secretaries do when faced with a tricky debate on the ‘war on drugs’. He shot the messenger. . . .

Until now my unhealthy, yet completely legal, habits have been segregated from any debate concerning the relative harm caused by other, less readily available behaviour-altering substances. . . .

We, the 'social' drinkers and part-time puffers of Britain, have another reprieve from censure, thanks to Mr Johnson.

Our legal, taxable poisons will not be classified by the Government in the same way as toxins from which they cannot raise much-needed revenue.

And the debate on how our society relies on substance abuse and what radical measures need to be taken to lessen their stranglehold on us suffers another major setback.

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