This exchange about laws governing stuff that harms you will have you facepalming into next week
Jeremy Vine shared this exchange today between the government’s one-time drugs tsar and the then home secretary, Jacqui Smith.
It took place a few years ago and yet has a timeless quality that alas still resonates today.
Always good to remember this exchange when talking about stuff that causes harm, whether it's cannabis, computer games, whatever.
(via @momentumCV) pic.twitter.com/AvmApt7TDe— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) June 18, 2018
David Nutt was later forced to resign as the government’s drugs tsar for stating his view that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol.
Here’s what people said about the dialogue today.
It's what you might call, backward thinking..
— steve (@s_t_eph_e_n) June 18, 2018
'Thinking' is too grand an adjective to use.
— Voyager03 (@Voyager03) June 18, 2018
“Drugs are bad because they are illegal”
— Jonathan Pound (@Jonathan_Pound) June 18, 2018
Highlights the rigidity of May's mind, that leads her into logical absurdities.
— Phil Marsden (@phil_marsden) June 18, 2018
This wasn't May but the Home Secretary under Gordon Brown. I doubt that May and other MPs are very much different.
— Michael Bond (@CodingMonkey) June 18, 2018
Sorry, yes, Smith. May is worse. I met Nutt shortly after he was sacked and discussed this with him (and the drug habits of the then PM and Chancellor)
— Phil Marsden (@phil_marsden) June 18, 2018
But of all the responses this was the most revealing.
Professor Nutt used to be my landlord. Took me to IKEA once to buy a bookcase. Nice fella.
— Peadar de Burca (@petieburkis) June 18, 2018