Ecstasy 'no worse than horse riding'
Updated on 07 February 2009
Taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse, a top Government drug adviser has said.
Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said in a medical journal that taking the drug was no more harmful than an addiction to riding.
The council is expected next week to recommend that ecstasy is downgraded from class A to the less dangerous class B classification. Ministers have outlined their opposition to such a move.
Prof Nutt's article in Journal of Psychopharmacology is entitled "Equasy - An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms".
He writes: "The point was to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse riding and ecstasy."
The professor said equasy - short for equine addiction syndrome - caused more than 100 deaths a year.
He added: "This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates - indeed encourages - certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others such as drug use."
Ecstasy use is linked to around 30 deaths a year, up from ten a year in the early 1990s. Fatalities are caused by massive organ failure from overheating or the effects of drinking too much water.
David Raynes, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, said: "He is entitled to his personal opinion, but if his personal view conflicts so very strongly with his public duties, it would be honourable to consider his position. If he does not, the Home Secretary should do it for him."
© Independent Television News Limited 2009. All rights reserved.
These news feeds are provided by an independent third party and Channel 4 is not responsible or liable to you for the same.
