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The cover of Drugs Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs

Drugs Without the Hot Air: Minimising the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs

David Nutt

How harmful is each drug, legal or not, when the harms are actually measured instead of guessed?

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At a glance

Author
David Nutt

Why read it

  • You will be able to compare drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, across many kinds of harm
  • You will see how fear and politics can shape drug laws more than evidence does
  • You will be able to weigh the argument that the war on drugs has increased harm

Who it is for

  • A parent worried about what teenagers might try
  • A voter deciding what drug policy should look like
  • A reader with a friend or relative who uses drugs

Contents

  1. Contents at a glance
  2. Preface
  3. Chapter endnotes
  4. URLs and web links
  5. 1 Why I had to write this book
  6. Who this book is for
  7. 2 Is ecstasy more dangerous than horse riding?
  8. Go compare
  9. Equasy
  10. What is ecstasy?
  11. Does ecstasy kill?
  12. What are the other harms of ecstasy?
  13. Ecstasy in the media
  14. Ecstasy: a moral issue
  15. Why measuring drug harms frightens politicians
  16. 3 How can we measure the harms done by drugs?
  17. Why measure?
  18. Sixteen different sorts of harm
  19. Multi-criteria decision analysis
  20. The expert panel
  21. Which drugs did the expert panel consider?
  22. Rating the drugs
  23. Weighting the scores
  24. Results
  25. Limitations of the model
  26. Critical reception
  27. Conclusion
  28. Reviewing a drug’s Class? The case of ketamine
  29. 4 Why do people take drugs?
  30. How drugs evolved
  31. Chemicals in the human brain
  32. A typical day without drugs
  33. What is a drug?
  34. 1. Opioids – opium, heroin, methadone, buprenorphine, codeine
  35. 2. Stimulants or “uppers” – cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, caffeine, steroids, khat, mephedrone, tobacco
  36. 3. Depressants or “downers” – alcohol, benzodiazepines, GHB
  37. 4. Psychedelics – LSD, mushrooms, ayuesca/DMT, peyote/mescaline, ibogaine
  38. Less easily-classified drugs
  39. A typical day on drugs
  40. A brief history of drug use
  41. Why do people take drugs?
  42. Why this matters
  43. 5 Cannabis, and why did Queen Victoria take it?
  44. Cannabis as hemp
  45. Cannabis as a drug
  46. What are the benefits?
  47. What are the harms?
  48. Cannabis routes of use
  49. Is skunk more harmful than hash?
  50. Why did cannabis stop being seen as a medicine?
  51. Medicinal cannabis use in the UK today
  52. Conclusion
  53. 6 If alcohol were discovered today, would it be legal?
  54. How the drinks industry influences alcohol policy
  55. How can we reduce the harm done by alcohol?
  56. Conclusion
  57. 7 “Meow meow” – should mephedrone have been banned?
  58. “Meow meow”
  59. What is mephedrone and why is it called plant food?
  60. The harms and benefits of taking mephedrone

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