Marijuana doesn't cause mental health problems, but keeping track of the British drug policy debate just might.

Less than two weeks after increasing penalties for marijuana, we learn that the British have selected a new drug czar who wants to reduce penalties for ecstasy.

The man appointed head of the advisory council for the misuse of drugs once called for ecstasy to be downgraded to a class B drug, politics.co.uk can exclusively reveal.

Professor David Nutt, who replaces Sir Michael Rawlins as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) this afternoon, made the comments at a science and technology committee hearing in 2006.

"I think the evidence base for classification producing deterrence is not strong and we see that with a number of drugs," he said. [politics.co.uk]

By that logic, Nutt presumably also opposes the recent upgrade in marijuana's criminal status. Unfortunately, as we learned in that instance, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown couldn’t care less what his own experts think about drug policy.

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