"facebook users spend three solid days a year on the site" ...I really thought it would be more

According to the Telegraph this morning, the average facebook user has spent 70 hours and 26 minutes on the site in the last 12 months.

This figure surprises me as I know many a young facebook addict and they must spend at least half an hour to an hour on the site every day, including myself. Not neccessarily doing anything on it, but its there running in the background for no good reason really. Its sad, I know, but its a highly addictive distraction. So from this experience I was expecting the figure to be at least 100 hours.

On another note the article I'm referring to is of poor quality. The sub-headline is confusing due to poor grammar and there are far too many figures and stats dotted about it that make a hungover journo such as myself switch off within 5 seconds of reading it. Was there not anything more exciting happening in the world of technology Emma Barnett?

A controversial matter- drugs

Shocking news this weekend as the government's chief drug advisor has been sacked. Professor David Nutt was told to resign by Home Secretary Alan Johnson after he'd criticised government policies.

Nutt criticised the government for rejecting the advice that Cannabis should not be reclassified to B and that Ecstasy should be lowered to class B. He also accused the government of "distorting" and "devaluing" scientific research. He pointed out that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal substances such as LSD and cannabis.

According to the guardian the government now face a furious back lash from top scientists because of this, in my view, highly unfair and unjustified decision. The decision seems to completely contradict the idea behind having an independent body as the advisory council.

The government are not a group of scientists hence why they need these people to provide them with accurate scientific evidence on the effect and harm of drugs. David Nutt provided them with this and just because he has stated the complete truth, which has made the government look bad, he gets the sack. He has a duty and a right to provide the public with this information.

The government need to rectify their decision and take a proper look at the classification system because at the moment their apparent "war on drugs" is failing and its because they aren't listening to the right people.

They seem to pander to the media's whipped up frenzies such as the case of Lea Betts and her death which was connected to Ecstasy. This created a unnecessary major moral panic. However the true facts and figures about these things always seem to fade in to the background which leads the public to think the worst about "illegal substances" rather than question exactly why they have been made illegal. It should be the governments job to reassure people that this is not a common reaction to Ecstasy as David Nutt has done so by pointing out that horseriding (100 deaths a year) appears more dangerous than Ecstasy (30 deaths a year).

The Drugs Advisory Council are now considering a "resign en masse" as the future of the independent body is thrown in to severe doubt.