Another Inconvenient Truth
Politicians in democracies cannot make arbitrary decisions like dictators; they must appear to be responsive to their constituencies. Decisions must appear to be based on honored principles and sound economic and scientific rules. That is why, back in 1971 Great Britain put together something called the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The function of this body was to give science-based advice to those in government who are responsible for regulating those drugs likely to be “misused.” This seemed to work pretty well until recently when the Council’s chairman, Professor David Nutt, was fired by the Home Secretary .
What did Professor Nutt say that caused his dismissal? In response to his firing the Professor wrote the following brief explanation of the Council’s function:
“All drugs are potentially harmful and many of the harms can be measured. We can use scientific methods to estimate these and produce a ranking,and compare our scores with their location in the Misuse of Drugs Act. Heroin and cocaine appear to be in the correct place (Class A), whereas Ecstasy (Class A) and cannabis do not (Class B).
The reason for making drugs illegal is to let society reduce harms by
punishing their sale and use. The purpose of having the ABC classes
is to scale penalties according to relative harms. Possession of a
class A drug for personal use can lead to seven years in prison, for
class B, it is five years and for class C, two years.
The classes are also important in educating the public about the
relative harms of drugs. So it is imperative that the classification
of drugs truly reflects their harms, otherwise injustices may occur
and the educational message be undermined. Scientific inquiry into
drug harms must also be honest and accurate so that the best quality
evidence is available to the experts and government. Legal drugs
such as alcohol and tobacco are as harmful as many illegal drugs and
currently score highly on our ranking list.”
So it is clear the Professor is not some sort of radical with regard to drugs. He does not favor legalization nor does he tout the miraculous benefits of one illegal drug or another. He simply is an advocate of truth in the process of assessing the relative dangers of different drugs. So exactly why was he fired?
The professor said smoking cannabis created only a “relatively small risk” of psychotic illness and said that taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse. He also said that he disagreed with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. “Gordon Brown makes completely irrational statements about cannabis being ‘lethal’, which it is not. I’m not prepared to mislead the public about the harmfulness of drugs like cannabis and ecstasy. I think most scientists will see this as an example of the Luddite attitude of governments towards science.”
He repeated his view that cannabis was “not that harmful” and that parents should be more worried about alcohol.
“The greatest concern to parents should be that their children do not
get completely off their heads with alcohol because it can kill
them … and it leads them to do things which are very dangerous,
such as to kill themselves or others in cars, get into fights, get
raped, and engage in other activities which they regret subsequently.
My view is that, if you want to reduce the harm to society from
drugs, alcohol is the drug to target at present.”
The future of the Drugs Advisory Council is now in question. Two members resigned over the weekend and statements from the members make it clear that a majority of the council have serious concerns about Professor Nutt’s dismissal and the future of the council.
I think it’s interesting how politicians pay lip-service to scientific opinion when asked to vote on something they feel may be unpopular with their constituency or may cause them to be criticized in an upcoming election. Unfortunately it seems referring a problem to a “Blue Ribbon Panel” or other outside board of experts is simply a stalling tactic. Nixon circular-filed the Schafer Commission Report when he didn’t like what it recommended. The Canadian Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs was ignored when it recommended legalizing and regulating them. Now the UK fires the head of its scientific advisory board because the science differed from the politics. If he’s around up there somewhere I’m sure Galileo is shaking his head lamenting just how little man has progressed over the centuries.
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One Response to “Another Inconvenient Truth”
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You say Nicholas, “it is clear that Professor Nutt is not some sort of radical with regard to drugs”.
That is very far indeed from the truth.
Professor Nutt has very strong links with some pharmaceutical companies including one in which he had to declare a very substantial personal investment.
He has made no secret of his wish to develop a drug substitute for alcohol and in 2006 wrote in the Journal of Psychopharmacology (Editor D Nutt) to that effect. He maintains that stance. Of course for any product he develops he would need licensing approval.
To achieve that commercial objective he needs the differentiation between legal and illegal drugs to change. Hence his campaigning, for which he was rightly dismissed.
He is quite entitled to his views but pushing his personal & commercial interests & his views which were not in accord with government views, or with decisions taken by a democratically elected parliament-was obviously incompatible with his official position.
As to the science diferring from the politics around cannabis. The ACMD (on which Nutt was an ordinary member -not the Chairman he later became) was not itself unanimous on the classification of cannabis. The Government’s Chief Medical Advisor on Mental Illness -Professor Appleby, urged reclassification to “B” under the UK loose, hierarchical system of classification.
The government corrected the classification to that which it has traditionaly been, it did so as an act of caution in the face of the widespread mental problems that low CBD cannabis is causing in the UK.
If the scientists cannot agree what was government to do?-It was getting conflicting adviec. Caution it had to be.