Drugs without the hot air
by David Nutt · first published 2012
13mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2012–2025first – last mentioned
50% recommend17% neutral33% critical
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…Surely you can't think that cutting off a lucrative revenue stream from the cartels is a bad thing? 3) Drugs really aren't as dangerous as you've been told. Read a real book on them sometime. I recommend 'Drugs: Without the hot air' by Professor David Nutt, one of the UK's foremost scientists in this area.
on “Colorado measure legalizing marijuana passes” ↗…dangerous. But I'm afraid it's you that's absolutely wrong about the relative harms here. It's not a lie, I suggest you actually try reading about this sometime. My recommendation to get started would be "Drugs without the hot air" by Professor David Nutt.
on “Grateful Dead Fan Timothy Tyler Has Been Granted Clemency” ↗I recently read David Nutt's Drugs Without the Hot Air, which turned out to be very timely. A fantastic book that really sets out the case for evidence-based classification (and legalisation) of drugs, based on the approach of minimising harm (not minimising…
on “Canada legalises recreational cannabis use” ↗"Drugs without the hot air" [1] by David Nutt was a great intro to science/harm-based drug policies. [1] https://www.uit.co.uk/drugs-without-the-hot-air
on “California bill would decriminalize psychedelics” ↗…have the same health impacts and its lack of addiction potential gives it a significantly lower harm profile. Do yourself a favour and read some material published by domain experts (may I recommend “Drugs Without the Hot Air” by David Nutt).
on “How to get 7th graders to smoke” ↗…outcomes, I'd go with the hallucinogens and weed. If you want to read about the comparative risks of drug use (including tobacco and alcohol, but written prior to the explosion of vapes) I highly recommend "Drugs without the hot air", a book by Prof. David Nutt, one of the UK's foremost experts on the topic. The general takeaway is that heroin, cocaine, tobacco and alcohol are the worst, and that most other drugs slot in below there…
on “Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban” ↗…talking about a benzodiazepine derivative he's working on, though finding one without the addiction potential of its class would be hard work. And it's entirely possible he's just trolling :) His book, "Drugs Without the Hot Air" is well worth reading. It contains some of the basic neuroscience behind drug actions, explores a lot of societal stuff and, in general was just a good read, if you're genuinely interested in this stuff.
on “Uruguay legalises production and sale of cannabis” ↗…parameters for a proper classification of alcohol's 'abilities' in relation to other substances Yes, it does need that. Luckily researchers do these sorts of measurements. I recommend reading things like "Drugs without the hot air" mentioned a few times in this thread. I'm posting from my phone so not going to look up references right now. >> This is PURELY on an individual basis... Different substances have different addiction…
on “Drugs and the Meaning of Life (2011)” ↗Nah. David Nutt is criminally dishonest. I've read his book (Drugs Without the Hot Air) and it is a straight up propaganda. The guy cherry picks a lot of his evidence and it is a chapter after chapter of half truths and lies by omission. Of the top of my head I can recall Nutt's chapter…
on “Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol” ↗…you recommend, but I've read other books on this subject and frankly find their argument lacking. Way too often their authors cherry pick arguments. One of the books on this topic was David Nutt's "Drugs Without the Hot Air". David Nutt is also proclaimed as world drug expert, but his book is riddled with huge amount of lies by omission. The one egregious example was him citing Kary Mullis (the Nobel laureate for inventing…
on “Mapping San Francisco's Human Waste Challenge” ↗Obligatory link to "Drugs without the hot air" [1] which begs to differ. Heroin is terribly addictive and destructive. [1] https://www.uit.co.uk/drugs-without-the-hot-air https://www.amazon.com/Drugs-without-hot-air-illegal/dp/0857...
on “I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem” ↗…be given to a name to not inflict hurt unnecessarily but also wouldn't have caught moonshine as a term celebrating alcoholism (which is still one of the most damaging drugs available, c.f. David Nutt's Drugs without the hot air).
on “Moonshine, the new state of the art for speech to text” ↗…cited one just involved taking some doctors and asking them to yolo out some qualitative harm estimates. Not ideal evidence-based medicine. (I would provide a close cite but I only recall from his book "drugs without the hot air" & am on mobile)
on “MDMA and Psilocybin Are Approved as Medicines for the First Time” ↗