Fact, Not Prejudice

Over on Comment Is Free, Peter Hitchens writes:

Decca Aitkenhead, like many leftists, assumes that it is axiomatic that moral conservatives are wrong, and she can therefore assert this without evidence. She quotes Professor David Nutt's dismissal of his critics – including me – with apparent approval. Prof Nutt, she writes, is "very good at exposing the confusion of much political thinking on drugs, as well as the baseless alarmism of media commentators 'like Peter Hitchens, who don't want facts to get in the way of prejudice'".

I read on for details of this exposure, and of Prof Nutt's skill at doing it. But none came. While I was pleased to see that Ms Aitkenhead found Prof Nutt's general case curiously unsatisfactory, she gave no example of my ignoring facts to suit my prejudices.

That's because I don't. I recently took part in a Today programme discussion with Prof Nutt about his report, supposedly ranking several drugs according to their risks. Despite my alleged prejudices, I shared Ms Aitkenhead's view that "its shortcomings seemed pretty glaringly obvious, even to someone as unscientifically minded as me. The rankings did not allow for the drugs' current legal status – and therefore availability."

I might have added that the report itself, with its curious conflation of physical, social and other effects, subjectively weighted, looks much more like sociology than like hard, experimental science. I yield absolutely to Prof Nutt when he sticks to his area of expertise, neuropsychopharmacology. But when he engages in politics he should not be given a free pass just because he is a professor. Others are entitled to challenge him. Why me? Perhaps because I am willing to take up unfashionable causes, but also because I have been writing and debating about this subject for many years, and feel that the pro-cannabis case is too readily accepted by the prejudiced children of the 60s – and their children.

There are two areas where the Nuttites are in trouble. One is their apparent belief that concern about the mental health dangers of cannabis is "baseless alarmism". The work of Professor Robin Murray at the Maudsley hospital suggests otherwise.

The other is their view that the law unfairly criminalises users of cannabis. Prof Nutt said on Today that last year "160,000 people were given criminal sanctions for possessing cannabis". This is misleading. There were 162,610 recorded cases of cannabis possession in England and Wales in 2009. However, most of these – 86,953 – were dealt with by a procedure known as a cannabis warning. This has no legal status and does not lead to a criminal record. Another 19,137 were dealt with through cautions. Then there were 11,492 penalty notices for disorder, which do not involve a court appearance, a fine or imprisonment. Only 22,748 cannabis cases, slightly more than one in eight, ended in court. Thousands more have no recorded outcome at all. Who here is being factual, and who is being prejudiced?