Horse Feathers

A Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has said ecstasy is no worse than horse riding..
To quote him in full
"Drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse-riding and ecstasy."
The professor said horse-riding accounted for more than 100 deaths a year, and went on: "This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates - indeed encourages - certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others such as drug use."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7876425.stm

He seems to have forgotten (not taking his own advice, is he?) that horse riding is a legal activity and horse riders rarely set out to injure themselves or attack others. Drug users hurt people to get their drugs, hurt people through taking their drugs and the money they spend contributes to other organised criminal activity.
Our once envied and proud British society is now a laughing stock and is tearing itself apart. Thanks to the opinions of a small number of academics such as Professor Nutt that give licence to unacceptable behaviour on the grounds of freedom and inaccurate association with legal forms of enjoyment. He forgets that with freedom comes responsibility and that responsibility is sadly lacking because in recent years we have chosen to remove the penalties that controlled such irresponsibility.