UK Home Office Restores Drug Science to the Back of the Bus

When I last took up the quixotic campaign of David Nutt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychopharmacology, Univ. of Bristol and former Chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, it was to point out his belief that MDMA should be downgraded to a lesser harm category. He had issued opinion pieces comparing MDMA’s propensity for causing harm favorably with alcohol and waxed enthusiastic about the current clinical trials. The trigger for my post was his absurdist essay on the unfortunate harms to public health that are associated with addiction to “equasy”.

Wow, that "addictiveness index" looks mighty precise.

I read a Re-Twitt from our good blog friend Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata which pointed to a most amazing bit of online drug information. The originator was @mjrobbins of The Lay Scientist blog*. The answer to “What are the most addictive drugs” on some Q/A site called blurtit. And dude, do they have answers! For example, the “addiction likelihood” of cocaine is 78%, of heroin is 87.5% and of crystal meth is 89.5%. Wow, what precision! And they cite some science-y sounding dudes including some that I recognize as being experts. Great stuff, all kinds of people want to know the objective addictiveness of different drugs right? From parents to policy makers, users to scientists.
…but what’s all this? The “addiction likelihood” of cannabis is 42%, of LSD is 32% and of psilocybin and mescaline are 16-18%? Hmm…..

Blogrolling: Psychedelic Research

Today’s offering for the Reader interested in drug abuse issues is the Psychedelic Research blog. This appears to be a brand-spanking new effort with the first introductory post on May 27 which indicates:

This is a blog to track research and events relating to the scientific study of hallucinogens and consciousness. I hope that documenting my readings here will be interesting or even helpful to others. My writing goals with this blog are relatively modest: I primarily aim to provide abstracts from papers, linking to them whenever possible, with occasional brief comments about what interests me.

So without much track record or content yet, what drew my eye?

RIP: Albert Hofmann (1906 – 2008)

Albert Hofmann, the chemist who synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 died of a heart attack on April 29, 2008 at the age of 102. Hofmann (Wikipedia entry) also discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD because of an accidental ingestion about five years after he first synthesized the compound. The impact of this train of events on our understanding of the neurochemical function of the brain stretches across many disciplines from basic neuroscience to studies of consciousness and theology.
Obituaries: NYT, LA Times, Reuters.
[and thanks to reader Neuro-conservative who already noted this for the DM readers]