Which is more dangerous, taking ecstasy or riding a horse?
This is the question that got Professor David Nutt, a British psychiatrist, into a spot of political bother. Nutt is the Editor of the academic Journal of Psychopharmacology. He recently published a brief and provocative editorial called "Equasy".
Equasy is a fun read with a serious message. (It's open access so you can read the whole thing - I recommend it.) Nutt points out that the way in which we think about the harms of illegal drugs, such as ecstasy, is unlike the way in which we think about other dangerous things such as horseriding - or "equasy" as he dubs it:
The drug debate takes place without reference to other causes of harm in society, which tends to give drugs a different, more worrying, status. In this article, I share experience of another harmful addiction I have called equasy...
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