Foresight, the government's own science think tank has launched a report into the future of British drug use - medicinal and recreational. It is a giant of a document full of surmises and data about developments in neuroscience, drug technology and our society, which seems to like (a) medicating itself to improve professional performance (b) medicating itself to fix psychopathology and (c) medicating itself for kicks.
Pretty much any chapter could be spun into a news line, and indeed the BBC has already made a story out one observation in the report. I imagine there will be plenty of 'Government boffins predict ...' in tomorrow's papers.
An early glance does yield one interesting observation - the report rigorously includes alcohol and tobacco among the recreational substances regularly abused by Brits and does not shy away from using our collective love affair with booze to put our illegal habits in perspective. (It is in the top 3 along with Cocaine and Heroin on a scale of harms as judged by police and psychiatrists, way higher than Cannabis and Ecstasy.)
Also interesting is the report's acknowledgement, more tacit than explicit, that recreational drug use is something to be managed by society rather than abolished. It raises the prospect of using pharmaceutical technology to synthesise drugs that have some of the benefits of recreational drugs without the harmful side effects. (Soma, anyone?)
There is plenty more of interest, especially on the neurophysiology of addiction and brain disorders. The Observer blog recommends downloading the whole pdf. It is well written - accessible to a lay person, and bound to be more interesting than the news 'top lines' that are culled from it to fill Metro tomorrow.
