Impartiality and Debate on the BBC

Some days ago, on Monday November 1, I was invited on to the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme to discuss a report published by (among others) Professor David Nutt. Professor Nutt has been discussed here before and is known for his radical approach to the current laws on drugs. His report rather eye-catchingly suggested that alcohol is the most damaging drug available in Britain.


I would have posted the link to this broadcast long ago, but it has been broken since the programme was transmitted and was only fixed today, after I made e-mail and telephone pleas for this to be done. It has now been fixed (my thanks to Andy Walker at Radio 4, who took great trouble to see that this was done) so it can be found here.


From the chair, could I stress that I am not interested in rehearsing the arguments on this subject which have been held here more times than I care to remember. They are a dialogue of the deaf because the pro-drug advocates are making a moral case - for a society willing to pay the large penalties of unrestricted hedonism, widespread intoxication and undeserved pleasure, because that is what it likes.


But they will not admit this, and instead make their case under the cover of legalistic arguments, attempts to blur existing moral boundaries with obfuscation, and debatable versions of history (and indeed of present events). They also tend to pretend that they have no interest in the outcome of the debate, which I find incredible given their passion for their side of it.


What I wish to debate here (and I will respond only to postings on this subject) is the way in which the BBC handled the matter.


I have no idea what Professor Nutt seeks or wants. But I am in no doubt that reports such as his serve the purposes of the lobby I describe above. And it is my view that the BBC and much of the media accord them far greater status than they deserve.


Alas, the news bulletins of that day are not available on the web, so far as I know. If they were, it would be possible to show that the BBC gave the report great prominence and treated it as a serious contribution to science. They also made no substantial mention of Professor Nutt's controversial past, and accepted at face value the standing of the self-styled 'Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs'. Independent of whom or what?


Well, which of the hard experimental, predictive sciences is it based on? Certainly not Physics, Chemistry or Biology, or any of their subdivisions. It looks more like Sociology, that abstract and subjective discipline, to me. And even I have an 'A' level in that. It somehow manages to combine stomach ulcers, needles littering the streets, deforestation, road traffic accidents, absenteeism, domestic violence, blood-borne viruses, the decline in social cohesion, child neglect and many other disparate factors in its judgement. It claims to have devised a formula under which all these things are given their correct weighting in determining the danger of a particular drug.


How? Well, I quote from the section headed 'Scoring of the drugs on the criteria', which describes part of the process thus:


'Consistency checking is an important part of proper scoring, since it helps to minimise bias in the scores and encourages realism in the scoring. Even more important is the discussion of the group, since scores are often changed from those originally suggested as participants share their different experiences and revise their views.'


Is this objective experimental science? Are all of the categories studied even susceptible to objective measurement in the first place, let alone meaningfully combined with others (even if they are more readily measurable) which are wholly different?


I could not see, when I read the material, how this could possibly be given the weight accorded to a paper which recounted scientific experiments and their results conducted under laboratory conditions. In which case, why does it qualify for such uncritical reverence?


In his introduction to the item, Justin Webb said: 'We are being told today that alcohol is a more dangerous drug than heroin or crack cocaine, not of course to an individual user but to society generally. The message comes from Professor David Nutt, the former chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs who with colleagues on the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs has produced a very serious scientifically-argued attack on current drugs legislation or at least the way we view it.'


Note that description. 'Very serious, scientifically-argued.'


Please listen to the whole item. Note that when I say there is no 'war on drugs' Mr Webb interjects: 'Of course there is.'


And note that Professor Nutt also avers at the end: 'They (the Government) need to accept the fact that the Misuse of Drugs Act is way past its sell by date. We need to completely review the way in which we deal with all drugs, not just illegal drugs because that's an arbitrary and non-scientific division. We need to review the whole way in which society regulates, controls, reduces the harms of drugs.'


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Published on November 10, 2010 09:04
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