It’s interesting though, and very readable. It helps that, although the book takes a ‘liberal’ stance compared to the current law, it’s not derived from a naive libertarianism. Nutt is not arguing for loosening the drug laws on the basis of increased personal liberty; he wants the law to be better at managing harms and risks. So he supports the ban on smoking in public places and would tighten some of the rules on alcohol sales. And although treating addiction to heroin and cocaine as a primarily medical problem could be seen as ‘soft on drugs’, he’s arguing for it on the basis that it is the best way to minimise harm. The worst part about this book is that I came out feeling only marginally more informed about what we can do to minimize the harms going forward, what policies I should support and what practices I should adopt. I would have even accepted a book that taught me a lot about the history, or that gave me a lot of anecdotal accounts that weaved stories both from the regulatory and user side of things. But instead I got none of this. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, maybe it's for people who haven't though much about the issue before. But there are still major issues (see Chapter 12) and insufficient summaries (see Chapter 13) to contend with, leading me to think I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Overall, I'd say about 5% of the book was new, useful material for me, another 5% a worthwhile read, and the rest either introductory or poor quality material that didn't help me grow at all. I'll proceed with a chapter by chapter breakdown (grouping similar ones together) to shine some further light. David Nutt ήταν σύμβουλος της Βρετανικής κυβέρνησης μέχρι που δημοσίευσε ένα άρθρο σε επιστημονική δημοσίευση που -ω, βλασφήμια!- σύγκρινε ελαφρώς χιουμοριστικά τους κινδύνους της λήψης MDMA, γνωστού και ως Ecstasy, με αυτούς της ιππασίας. Όπως ήταν αναμενόμενο, έχασε την θέση του -- μια θέση σ' ένα συμβούλιο που υποτίθεται πως ήταν υπεύθυνο για να ενημερώνει την κυβέρνηση γι�� το ποιες ουσίες είναι επικίνδυνες σε ποιον βαθμό και να αλλάζει την κοινή γνώμη γι' αυτές σύμφωνα με νέα επιστημονικά δεδομένα που τις αφορούν. Ocr 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 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.

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. Drugs without the hot air covers a wide range of topics, from addiction and whether addictive personalities exist to the role of cannabis in treating epilepsy, an overview on the opioid crisis, and an assessment of how harmful vaping is. This new expanded and revised second edition includes even more details on international policies, particularly in the US. David's research has won international support, reducing drug-related harm by introducing policies that are founded on scientific evidence. But there is still a lot to be done. Nutt goes into some detail at the start of this book about his disagreements with Government. Unfortunately, given that it’s at the start of the book, I found this a bit unconvincing: it read as though he felt scientific evidence was the only aspect to be considered in policy-making (or at least in the operation of specific policy levers). 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.urn:lcp:drugswithouthota0000nutt:epub:17a9ae39-0965-4e63-88f9-bde811cb128c Foldoutcount 0 Identifier drugswithouthota0000nutt Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6r04tb1p Invoice 1652 Isbn 9781906860165 The dangers of illegal drugs are well known and rarely disputed, but how harmful are alcohol and tobacco by comparison?

Chapters 1 & 2 felt like a long ego trip. Don't get me wrong, the events are worth writing about, but Nutt doesn't give much substance here, he just gives you a sort of tabloid overview of the situation that felt like it was about 95% filler and 5% content. I would have loved to have learned more about the traditional relationship between the ACMD and the government, he gives something like a paragraph on this topic that I think had to be far richer and would either paint a picture of a relationship that has grown fraught recently or one that has been flawed from the start, each of which suggestion we should take different actions about the problem.

Professor David Nutt, one of the world’s leading Neuropsychopharmacologists, has spent 15 years researching this field and it is his most significant body of work to date. In 2018, he co-founded the first academic psychedelic research centre – underpinned by his mission to provide evidence-based information for people everywhere. It revived interest in the understanding and use of this drug in its many forms, including MDMA, ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, LSD and ketamine. The results of this have been nothing short of ground-breaking for the future categorisation of drugs, but also for what we now know about brain mechanisms and our consciousness. About the Author: David Nutt is a psychiatrist, the Edmund J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology in Imperial College London and chair of DrugScience. The Times Eureka science magazine voted him one of the 100 most important figures in British Science.

Surveying the state of medical knowledge around various currently prohibited substances – from hard drugs to LSD, cannabis, ecstasy, magic mushrooms and poppers – Professor Nutt ranks their potential harms and benefits (e.g. in treating anxiety, depression or pain) leading him to challenge the distorted logic of a blanket ban on anything psychoactive except alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. This became a bit of a cause celèbre in the geekosphere. Because we all know that politicians will ignore the evidence if it’s politically inconvenient, but it’s rarely quite so blatant as firing someone for saying what the evidence is.

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Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-10-11 22:06:24 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA40256905 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier David Nutt became somewhat famous in the UK when he was chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs [ACMD], the statutory body which is responsible for advising the government on drug policy, and specifically on the appropriate legal classification of different drugs.

This is excellent and exactly what it says. Highly informed, caring, social-minded. Drugs without the hot air; without uninformed opinion parading as fact. 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 magazine 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. For me, the real strength of this book is in the sharing of the author's depth of knowledge in the science and political history of the subject, along with his clinical perspective and a passionate desire to reduce the harm caused by all substances including alcohol and tobacco. 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’.

Reviews

This was first published in 2012 and has been on my “to read” list ever since. I think, but can’t be certain, that I’ve sat through a tall by the author at some point in that period—though it may have been someone talking about him! Chapters 3, 4, 5 & 16 all felt incredibly introductory, so if you have even a basic familiarity I recommend to skip them entirely. Note: the chronicling of how perception of cannibas changed from medicine to drug in chapter 5 was a notable exception here that was something new for me. 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 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 magazine