Drugs without the hot air: Making Sense of Legal and Illegal Drugs

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Having enjoyed a Hay-Festival talk involving David Nutt among others, which discussed the current attitude towards drugs, and whether the "War on Drugs" had failed, I immediately bought and read this book. In that one hour's discussion, I'd found that my attitude towards drug laws had changed significantly from supporting the current emphasis of strong prosecution and imprisonment, to the recognition that if drug abuse was thought of as purely a health issue, the world could be a much better place. Reading this book helped me understand these concepts further, and taught me a great deal I hadn't known about drugs and the consequences of our approach to their use.

If you don't want to read it you might give it to your teenage children. A little knowledge (to misquote Pope) is a dangerous thing and most teenagers who try drugs are at best only partly informed. If they might be tempted by illicit drugs a little truth-telling from someone who knows and cares might help. Knowledge is empowering.For half a century the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has dominated ill-conceived approaches to the prohibition of drugs and the criminalisation of many offenders. Wilful blindness to scientific facts has distorted the dispensation of justice, prevented lifesaving investigation, sidelined critics and thwarted advocates of politically inconvenient drugs law reform. The issue of what a drug is and how we should live with them affects us all: parents, teachers, users – anyone who has taken a painkiller or drunk a glass of wine. Written by renowned psychiatrist, Professor David Nutt, Drugs without the hot air casts a refreshingly honest light on drugs and answers crucial questions that are rarely ever disputed. What are we missing by banning medical research into magic mushrooms, LSD and cannabis? Can they be sources of valuable treatments? How can psychedelics treat depression?

This is a book aimed at the general public. Reviewing a book on drugs as an addiction specialist had the prospect of being an unrewarding experience. Simplistic, reductionist arguments presented in a journalistic style leaving you angry and despondent. However, having David Nutt as the author offered the prospect of something different and as the title suggests, ‘without the hot air’. This is excellent and exactly what it says. Highly informed, caring, social-minded. Drugs without the hot air; without uninformed opinion parading as fact. He was criticised and eventually fired for being rather too vocal about the fact that the government consistently ignored the advice of the ACMD and allowed political considerations to trump the evidence, and for pointing out some inconvenient truths about relative harms; that alcohol and tobacco are both more dangerous than many illegal drugs, and that horse-riding is considerably more dangerous than taking ecstasy. If you've ever thought that drugs should be criminalised to protect drug-users from harm, but realise that sending someone to prison harms them many times more than the drugs ever did or ever could, then you may be on the verge of a worthwhile read.

About the contributors

The amazing Professor David Nutt has done it again. The must-read second edition has even more drugs and even less hot air! * Prof Val Curran, Director UCL Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit *

Start telling your kids about drugs from an early age and be prepared to discuss your drinking and smoking with them. Drugs without the hot air is a highly readable and informative survey of the current state of play on recreational drug use and abuse by one of our leading clinical psychopharmacologists. David Nutt confronts the many controversial issues concerning both legal and illegal drug use, including its political regulation, with a combination of common sense, evidence-based argument and passion. * Trevor Robbins, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Cambridge * Engaging, informed, contemporary and wise: David Nutt’s new edition will inform anyone touched by the myriad psychoactive chemicals we call drugs. That’s everyone. – Peter B Jones, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge The dangers of illegal drugs are well known and rarely disputed, but how harmful are alcohol and tobacco by comparison? There’s a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and research to dig into here but thanks to Nutt’s direct, no nonsense writing style the book also serves as a masterclass in science communication. – BBC Science Focus magazineOcr tesseract 5.0.0-beta-20210815 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-1200055 Openlibrary_edition I don't think you could ask for a more sensible, clear-eyed, and useful book about drugs, from the ones your doctor prescribes to the ones your bartender serves you to the ones you can go to jail for possessing. Nutt is not just a great and principled campaigner, nor merely a talented and dedicated scientist - he's also a superb communicator. * Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing * Drugs with the Hot Air is the perfect book for anyone who wants to understand drugs, their risks and benefits. David avoids all the prejudices and misinformation, common in too many documents in this field. He writes simply. He is a pleasure to read. – Baroness Meacher, House of Lords

Chapters 11 & 15 were the places I could have found policy Dos and Donts, and sure there were some shallow recommendations, and I think the generally push to remove triggers for people's addictions is a good one and worth following. But again they were just way to abstract and felt like a cursory glance at potential policy solutions rather than a thoughtful engagement with them. This, the most comprehensive critique of the 1971 Act yet, rests on the combined learning of leading medical, scientific, psychiatric, academic, legal, drug safety and other specialists to provide sound reasons to re-think half a century of bad law. A clear and reasonable perspective on a complicated and controversial area from an expert unafraid of talking sense to power about addictive drugs, legal or illegal. * Ed Bullmore, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge and Author of The Inflamed Mind *

Reviews

Nutt (ταιριαστό όνομα!) ξεκίνησε μια αρκετά ενδιαφέρουσα έρευνα επάνω στις βλαβερές συνέπειες των "ναρκωτικών" (όπως τις αποκαλούμε εδώ) ουσιών μ' ένα σύστημα 16 κατηγοριών βλάβης, και άφθονα από τα συμπεράσματά του αφορούν τόσο εμένα όσο και την νανιάκατη γιαγιά μου που πέρα από το αλκοόλ (το χειρότερο διεθνώς, ομολογουμένως, ναρκωτικό), την νικοτίνη και την πίσσα (τα δεύτερα χειρότερα), και την καφεΐνη ("δεν είναι ναρκωτικό, απλά δεν ξυπνάω αν δεν την λάβω!") δεν αναγν��ρίζει οποιαδήποτε άλλη ουσία ως "αποδεκτή και μη-σατανική" για την ηθική της. Επίσης αρνείται να μου πουλήσει τσιγάρα, αλλά αυτό είναι άλλο αστείο. Disclaimer. I'm not a particular fan of drug use but I don't regard people who intentionally take things, whether beer, whisky or mephedrone, to make them feel better, are criminals. The longest chapter, ‘The war on drugs, and the drugs in war’, offers cogent arguments that the continuing status quo is just not good enough, but Nutt does not stop there. He offers alternatives for the future, and with the prospect of a wide readership, and people informing themselves of the issues, our children (including those in producer nations) will live in a more informed and less hazardous future.