The drugs don’t work

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

It’s been a bad weekend for science and a bad weekend for Alan Johnson. On Friday, he removed Professor David Nutt – his expert advisor on the misuse of drugs – for speaking out against the government’s drugs policy. In any circumstances, that looks – indeed it is – very bad.

But it’s now reported that Professor Nutt’s colleagues at the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will resign in protest at the sacking – two have already done so and others are expected to follow next week – and it’s not inconceivable that the whole Council will eventually unravel from its current form.

In a heated interview with Adam Boulton yesterday, Johnson said:

“You cannot have a chief adviser at the same time stepping into the public field and campaigning against government decisions. You can do one or the other, you can’t do both…I’ve got enormous respect for the advisory council. I want to meet them very soon. I’ve got enormous respect for the scientific community. They’ve got to understand that Professor Nutt crossed this line between offering advice … and then campaigning against the government on political decisions.”

In this morning’s Times, Professor Nutt says:

“My sacking has cast a huge shadow over the relationship of science to policy. Several of the science experts from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs have resigned in protest and it seems likely that many others will follow suit. This means the Home Office no longer has a functioning advisory group, which is very unfortunate given the ever-increasing problems of drugs and the emergence of new ones. Also it seems unlikely that any “true” scientist – one who can only speak the truth – will be able to work for this, or future, Home Secretaries. Others have suggested a way forward: create a truly independent advisory council. This is the only realistic way out of the current mess.”

If there is to be a positive outcome from this controversy, it is that drugs policy will once again be a topic of national debate. That’s a debate that, at the moment, the government appears to be on the wrong side of.

Andrew Lomas says the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is failing and it’s time for a wholesale rethink. At this stage, all options should be put back on the table.