Thread by @SteveTransform

A PQ from @OwenThompson MP, on the evidence for the classification of #psilocybin (the drug in magic mushrooms) in class A, has produced an interesting answer from new drugs mininster Jeremy Quin MP

IMHO it's quite a misleading answer, thats usefully unpicked....

THREAD 🧵🍄1/

@OwenThompson In response to the evidence request Quin states:

"Govt has not commissioned or published any recent analysis of the harms of psilocybin"

'Recent' suggests that their was evidence in the past

There wasnt

He should have said none has EVER been commissioned or published
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@OwenThompson Psilocybin's anomalous classification came up in The Sci-Tech Select Committee 2006 inquiry, when ACMD chair Micheal Rawlins conceded:

“I've no idea what was going through the minds of the group who put it in ClassA...It is there because it is there”
publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cm…
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@OwenThompson The @CommonsSTC committee also noted that "The Home Office has admitted that it has never conducted any research into psilocin use"

NONE has been commissioned or published since 2006, and no ACMD review has been undertaken (ever)
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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC When Quin says 'A number of drugs which have been controlled under the 1971 Act for a considerable period of time have not been subject to analysis or recent analysis of harm'

He could/should have been 💯clear that psilocybin is one that has 'not been subject to analysis'
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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC and just a reminder of how bafflingly stupid our classification system is regards magic mushrooms (& indeed, more generally)

https://twitter.com/SteveTransform/status/1402335186310909956

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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC A second issue is where Quin notes that:

'Psilocin is also subject to the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, to which the UK is signatory.'

This appeal to the authority of the UN treaty schedules, in lieu of evidence, has a number of holes in it
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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC Placing psilocybin in shedule 1 under the 71 treaty was just as absent of evidence as the UK ClassA decision.

There was no evaluation at the time, & the WHO ECDD (the treaty equivalent of the ACMD) has never reviewed psilocybin since.

Its not 'evidence' Quin can point to
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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC Also important to be clear that while the 1971 treaty includes mescaline, DMT and psilocybin/psilosin in schedule 1, the commentary to the convention (the official guide to its implementation & use) makes it clear that the plants that contain the drugs are NOT included:

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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC the minister is not wrong to say psilocybin is in schedule 1 of the 71 UN treaty, but it does feel like hes only telling half the story - given magic mushrooms are specifically exempted (in a way that coca leaf, opium, and cannabis are not)

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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC And if that sounds like a loophole which would allow countries to legalise and regulate plant based psychedelics without falling foul of the treaties (as has unfortunately happened with cannabis legalising states) - thats because *it is*

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@OwenThompson @CommonsSTC More about all this in the upcoming Transform report on regulating (non-medical) psychedelics.....Watch this space

🍄/end