Author:
David J Nutt
Published:
January 6, 2020
Foreword by Professor David Nutt –
“I was removed from my position as Chief Advisor of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in October 2009. A decade later, UK drug policy has done nothing but go backwards. We are currently in a worse position now than we were 10 years ago. However, there is a path to a brave new world. Back in 2009, I was making it clear to the UK Government that the evidence that we had back then was that cannabis was less harmful than both alcohol or tobacco.
The hysteria at that time, (which has continued to persist until present day) relating to mephedrone and other new psychoactive substances was fabricated by governments to create a smokescreen that masked their omissions to react to ongoing failures within our national drug policy. As a member of the ACMD in 2009, I was unwilling to continue to perpetuate the same ideological approach to the government of the time and consequently, I was sacked.
Psychiatrists tell their patients that the best way to deal with stress is through active resistance. So, this is what I did, by creating the charity Drug Science. Drug Science has gone from strength to strength since then, including formulating Multi-Criteria Decision Analyses (MCDAs), producing policy documents which forced the World Health Organisation to review their decision on whether cannabis was a medicine and changed sentencing guidelines for methamphetamine supply in New Zealand. We have also been arming people with information about drugs by producing educational resources, blogs, podcasts and even produced our very own journal…”
This research was published in the Drug Science, Policy and Law Journal the definitive source of evidence-based information and comment for academics, scientists, policymakers, frontline workers and the general public on drugs and related issues.
For open-access to the full report of this research, see below:
Alternatively, you can watch Professor Nutt’s full talk here –