ME& a good week at work

Well despite the really bad weather in the UK, the last two weeks of work have been...tough, fun, scary, stressful but ultimately rewarding. As part of my work development I was given the task of being the press officer for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), an advisory body to the government on the physical and social harms of illegal drugs within the classification system as well as advising about new drugs that should and could be classified as illegal.

Anyway this week they published the first fully extensive review into the harms of MDMA or as you and I would know it the club drug ecstasy. As government had previously ignored the ACMD advice on the classification of cannabis their review on ecstasy would be big news.

The press briefing and the publication of the ACMD report took place on Wednesday 11th Feb but I had been working on it since 1st Jan and I have over come nothing but obstacles but in the end I think it got fairly balanced press. I was thinking it would all go to pot when the chair of the ACMD attracted initial negative in the press over the weekend for a medical paper he wrote comparing the harms of ecstasy to the legal pursuit of horse riding. Not prize for guessing which one causes more deaths and physical harm - yes horse riding.

Anyway this turned out to work in my advantage as it opened a serious debate in the media as to the harms of drugs and paved the way for the controversial recommendation in the ACMD report that ecstasy should be reclassified from a Class A to a Class B drug.

The government ignored this advice and stated it had no plans to reclassify the drug - this would make political suicide for any politician who agreed with the recommendation as governments have to be seen as being tough on drugs.

But the ACMD report wasn't about sending out the signal that ecstasy is ok to take but about saying that ecstasy is still an illegal drug but it does not cause as much harm as the other drugs in Class A like heroine and crack. So its about making sure that its in the correct classification. Evidence shows that those caught on ecstasy related crimes are not by far given criminal punishments that align with the Class A legislation. Up to 14 years in prison.

I guess what the ACMD were worried about is sending the message to people that if they try ecstasy which is a Class A drug and it doesn't have that much harm then they may think that other Class A drugs like heroine and crack will not have that much affect, which isn't the case.

On the face of the facts and considering the wide use of the drug ecstasy it only causes 17 deaths a year, sole attributed to ecstasy and a further 16 deaths as a contributing factors along with other drugs, health problems and alcohol . Deaths soley down to alcohol each year are around 2,385. One death from using either substance is unacceptable but we all have free minds and make the choice to use or not use.

Reclassification was only one of the recommendations out of 13. The others were about public health messages and research into possible future harms and the extend to use with under 16's. All of which were accepted apart from reclassification.

Anyway the blood, sweat and tears paid off, my first proper media briefing went without a hitch and the story was carried more or less in the ACMD favour within the press.

Even though I was dreading this extra responsibility at the beginning of the year, now I can look back and think what an achievement and the feedback from my bosses reflected the work I put in. At times I felt hypocritical doing this work and defending the ACMD position when my past history with drug abuse has been well documented in this blog. But in the end I guess I've also reflect the true harms of using as well as the initial quick rewards.

To read the review the ACMD put out into the harms of ecstasy click here, coverage around the report can be found by Googling the words; ACMD, Ecstasy and Classification.