Oli Usher: How the tabloid sledgehammer smashed Professor Nutt

It’s three weeks now since the Home Secretary chewed up and spat out David Nutt, erstwhile chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The man was guilty of that most post-modern of offences, being too honest in a system which puts a premium on hypocrisy.

by Tribune Web Editor
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

It’s three weeks now since the Home Secretary chewed up and spat out David Nutt, erstwhile chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The man was guilty of that most post-modern of offences, being too honest in a system which puts a premium on hypocrisy.

Nutt worked as a scientific adviser within an international framework of drugs control institutions which has no time for scientific advice, and which puts the political expediency of a 1961 treaty above any other issues that might conceivably be relevant. And as cheerleaders for this absurd system, he had to put up with The Sun and the Daily Mail.

Against the triple whammy of international law, tabloid journalists and a coward of a home secretary, the poor man never stood a chance.

The British Government does not control its own drugs policy. The Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971, the main piece of legislation on the subject, is virtually identical to equivalent laws in almost every country in the world. This is because drugs policy is internationalised like no other issue.

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is the main treaty governing drugs policy around the world. It explicitly bans the “cultivation, production, manufacture, extraction, preparation, possession, offering, offering for sale, distribution, purchase, sale, delivery on any terms whatsoever, brokerage, dispatch, dispatch in transit, transport, importation and exportation” of numerous drugs (including cannabis) worldwide.

It recommends sanctions against any country that does not.

It also sets out the broad outline of the scheme which in this country puts drugs into class A, B or C.

This – not health, not public opinion, not science – is the real reason why cannabis will never be decriminalised. The treaty is virtually impossible to repeal. With over 180 countries in the world, almost all of them signed up, the legalisation of any of these drugs would require the simultaneous support of about four-fifths of the world’s nations to become a reality. And any country which acted unilaterally without the support of the vast majority of signatories would end up on the wrong end of sanctions.

The elements of drug policy left to the nation state in this system are insignificant in comparison.

The extent to which individuals are criminalised for possession is one area in which governments have nominal control (hence the Netherlands turning a blind eye to cannabis use), as are the penalties drug users and dealers face when caught (hence

Britain’s choice of how, but not whether, to classify cannabis). But the role of national governments in this field is pretty much limited to the enforcement of rigid international regulations.

Given this, Britain’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was never a particularly serious organisation. With an inflexible framework based on rigid and virtually inalterable treaties rather than national laws, the ACMD is not in a position to have any real input into how drugs are treated. Such a position is even built into the ACMD’s title – the assumption that use equals misuse.

But at least it used to inject a little sanity into the application of an insane law.

The ACMD’s role, when it worked properly, was positive, if limited. It was on its recommendation that David Blunkett downgraded cannabis to class C in 2004 – about as close to legalisation that was possible under Britain’s treaty obligations, and a rare moment of relative sanity on the matter.

But since then, the moral panic over drugs has heated up again. One of Gordon Brown’s first acts as Prime Minister was to pacify the media by reclassifying cannabis up again to class B – against the scientific advice of the ACMD – and to refuse the downgrading of ecstasy from class A to class B – again, against scientific advice.

This means that possession of ecstasy in Britain is punishable by up to seven years in prison; cannabis by five.

This is the moral panic David Nutt stood in the way of. When things reach such a fever-pitch of irrationality that it seems normal, even desirable, to lock up otherwise law abiding citizens for up to seven years for doing something which affects no one but themselves, it should hardly surprise us that the tabloids went berserk at a scientist who was just doing his job properly.

And not satisfied with having ousted the professor, The Sun and Daily Mail have now set about attacking his reputation and that of his family. Lowlife reporters from those newspapers have been trawling his children’s Facebook pages in order to find dirt to smear the family with in print.

In a democracy, we have the government and the newspapers we deserve. We also have the scientific advice we deserve.

And if there is one thing this whole story teaches us, it’s that we didn’t deserve David Nutt – a good man traduced for no good reason. Now we’re going to have to make do without him.

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  • David Raynes

    I am not defending those who have attacked Nutt’s family.

    That out of the way, there is not much else in this article that is accurate. Firstly it is very difficult indeed to get sent to prison for personal use quantities of ANY drug in the UK.

    On the history of Professor Nutt and the ACMD. Since his dismmissal Nutt has misrepresented, unscientifically I say, the debate about cannabis classification.

    Importantly the ACMD was not unanimous, secondly otheres of equal eminence argued for cannabis to be reclassified to B in under the UK system (where it had mostly been under our very loosley defined groupings). The most important such person was Professor Appleby our National Director of Mental Health. A real expert on cannabis psychosis Professor Robin Murry has said that Nutt “played fast & loose with the statistics”, that is strong stuff.

    Government was getting conflicting advice and had to err on the side of caution, in so doing it was admitting that downgrading four years earlier was an error. Governments do not often do that.

    The pressure for reclassification was driven by the education and health portfolios in government, not primarily by the tabloids.

  • David Raynes

    I am not defending those who have attacked Nutt’s family.

    That out of the way, there is not much else in this article that is accurate. Firstly it is very difficult indeed to get sent to prison for personal use quantities of ANY drug in the UK.

    On the history of Professor Nutt and the ACMD. Since his dismmissal Nutt has misrepresented, unscientifically I say, the debate about cannabis classification.

    Importantly the ACMD was not unanimous, secondly otheres of equal eminence argued for cannabis to be reclassified to B in under the UK system (where it had mostly been under our very loosley defined groupings). The most important such person was Professor Appleby our National Director of Mental Health. A real expert on cannabis psychosis Professor Robin Murry has said that Nutt “played fast & loose with the statistics”, that is strong stuff.

    Government was getting conflicting advice and had to err on the side of caution, in so doing it was admitting that downgrading four years earlier was an error. Governments do not often do that.

    The pressure for reclassification was driven by the education and health portfolios in government, not primarily by the tabloids.

  • http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/ Steve Rolles

    A decent post Oli, thanks.

    For an exploration of how the UN drug control systems can be brought into line with the modern world see the appendix in Transform’s new book ‘After the war on drugs; blueprint for regulation’ (available in pdf form from http://bit.ly/167NmF) which also proposes models of legal regulation for currently illicit drug production and availability. Such reforms will be fraught with difficulty and take time, but are inevitable given the long term systemic failings of absolutist international prohibitions.

    Regads David;s comments – he is right, most drug possession offenses in the UK are commonly dealt with in ways not dissimilar to the so-called decriminalisation states (although arrest and caution can still lead to a criminal record with serious consequences), arguably making the moral posturing and tough talking bluster of mainstream politicians even more ridiculous. The real world and the world of politics often seem like parallel universes – never more so than with drugs policy.

    David, You refer to two experts whose views differ from those of Nutt/the ACMD – but apparently fit with your own. Naturally there are a range of views on any scientific question – but what the committee have done in all their harm evaluations is to consider a range of views and come to a conclusion on the balance of the evidence, as they are tasked to. Citing some that dissent from this view does not render the systematic reviews they undertook , nor Nutt’s personal statements ‘unscientific’. The fact that the committee do not consider the policy impacts of translating their classifications into a hierarchy of penalties is a major failing, (a scientific crime of omission far more important than tweaks to rankings) but not sadly the issue that this debacle hinged on.

    David – both of your experts were keen to highlight the mental health risks of cannabis, which is absolutely fine, but something that the ACMD have never shied away from in their reports. Nor has Nutt ever claimed it was safe in anything other that relative terms, nor does a classification of C suggest so. The classifiation system, for all its manifest failings, is about relative harms, and besides, there is no evidence to suggest changes in classification effect levels of use either way, nor specifically that classification system is an effective way of educating about risk or deterring use. If you have any please let us know what it is.

    I understood that Murray infact did not call for a move back to B, but rightly said it was irrelevant – choosing to focus on the risks as he saw them. I do not recall whether Appleby made such a call, but do recall that the spokesperson for MIND said that cannabis was dangerous but that classification was a side issue and distraction.

    Murray has on occasion himself rather misrepresented the ACMD, and arguably the evidence base, in some of his public statements, as explored here: http://bit.ly/tvgcr

    If you are going to accuse Nutt or the committee of being ‘unscientific’ you need to provide a proper critique of their reports, and then produce something better. You have never done this, or anything approaching it – only make unfounded accusations that fit around your world view, backed up with cherry picked evidence. That is the very essence of being unscientific. If you think ranking should be based on something other than a review of all the scientific evidence then make that case. But you don’t do that either.

    As for the committee not being unanimous, well, they are a committee of 30 – overwhelming majority has to do sometimes, and some difference of opinion is inevitable and probably a good thing. It should be noted that there are also individuals on the committee who represent organisations like ACPO who vote as they are instructed by the organisation (in this case back to B). Those instructions are not neccassarily based on the science and political considerations weigh heavily. Many of these organisations serve and are funded by the Government and subject to pressure (if you want your conspiracy David maybe your looking in the wrong place). ACPO’s risible presentation to the committee in the most recent evaluation demonstrated this with alarming clarity.

    Once again you’ve completely missed the point.

  • http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/ Steve Rolles

    A decent post Oli, thanks.

    For an exploration of how the UN drug control systems can be brought into line with the modern world see the appendix in Transform’s new book ‘After the war on drugs; blueprint for regulation’ (available in pdf form from http://bit.ly/167NmF) which also proposes models of legal regulation for currently illicit drug production and availability. Such reforms will be fraught with difficulty and take time, but are inevitable given the long term systemic failings of absolutist international prohibitions.

    Regads David;s comments – he is right, most drug possession offenses in the UK are commonly dealt with in ways not dissimilar to the so-called decriminalisation states (although arrest and caution can still lead to a criminal record with serious consequences), arguably making the moral posturing and tough talking bluster of mainstream politicians even more ridiculous. The real world and the world of politics often seem like parallel universes – never more so than with drugs policy.

    David, You refer to two experts whose views differ from those of Nutt/the ACMD – but apparently fit with your own. Naturally there are a range of views on any scientific question – but what the committee have done in all their harm evaluations is to consider a range of views and come to a conclusion on the balance of the evidence, as they are tasked to. Citing some that dissent from this view does not render the systematic reviews they undertook , nor Nutt’s personal statements ‘unscientific’. The fact that the committee do not consider the policy impacts of translating their classifications into a hierarchy of penalties is a major failing, (a scientific crime of omission far more important than tweaks to rankings) but not sadly the issue that this debacle hinged on.

    David – both of your experts were keen to highlight the mental health risks of cannabis, which is absolutely fine, but something that the ACMD have never shied away from in their reports. Nor has Nutt ever claimed it was safe in anything other that relative terms, nor does a classification of C suggest so. The classifiation system, for all its manifest failings, is about relative harms, and besides, there is no evidence to suggest changes in classification effect levels of use either way, nor specifically that classification system is an effective way of educating about risk or deterring use. If you have any please let us know what it is.

    I understood that Murray infact did not call for a move back to B, but rightly said it was irrelevant – choosing to focus on the risks as he saw them. I do not recall whether Appleby made such a call, but do recall that the spokesperson for MIND said that cannabis was dangerous but that classification was a side issue and distraction.

    Murray has on occasion himself rather misrepresented the ACMD, and arguably the evidence base, in some of his public statements, as explored here: http://bit.ly/tvgcr

    If you are going to accuse Nutt or the committee of being ‘unscientific’ you need to provide a proper critique of their reports, and then produce something better. You have never done this, or anything approaching it – only make unfounded accusations that fit around your world view, backed up with cherry picked evidence. That is the very essence of being unscientific. If you think ranking should be based on something other than a review of all the scientific evidence then make that case. But you don’t do that either.

    As for the committee not being unanimous, well, they are a committee of 30 – overwhelming majority has to do sometimes, and some difference of opinion is inevitable and probably a good thing. It should be noted that there are also individuals on the committee who represent organisations like ACPO who vote as they are instructed by the organisation (in this case back to B). Those instructions are not neccassarily based on the science and political considerations weigh heavily. Many of these organisations serve and are funded by the Government and subject to pressure (if you want your conspiracy David maybe your looking in the wrong place). ACPO’s risible presentation to the committee in the most recent evaluation demonstrated this with alarming clarity.

    Once again you’ve completely missed the point.

  • http://www.drugequality.org John Wells

    An excellent article.

    That our drug policy should be so strongly influenced by a handful of newspapers is very wrong.

  • http://www.drugequality.org John Wells

    An excellent article.

    That our drug policy should be so strongly influenced by a handful of newspapers is very wrong.

  • http://www.drugequality.org Darryl Bickler

    Some good points but incorrect on the law as far as how it can be used. Whilst appearing similar to the laws of other countries, Parliament drafted a superb legislative idea for an evolutive law which was flexible and adaptable to evolve with evidence. Certainly if one looks at sections 7, 22 & 31 of the Act you will note the powers afforded to the home secretary to administer the law according to it’s objects and principles (which he patently has not done). The ACMD have believed as has govt in some entirely erroneous ideas about the Act – firstly that alcohol and tobacco are not included in it – this is nonsense and the law extends to all drugs which may cause social harm, secondly that we are bound by international treaties and conventions – nonsense, these are non-incorporated instruments unlike the MDA 1971 and HRA – the ACMD is not so bound, nor is Parliament and the Courts.

    Lastly I met Nutt yesterday, he is not going anywhere, he is going to start his own advisory body so that the press have somewhere to find credible info on drugs.

    David Raynes is guilty of persecuting peaceful users of drugs who are subject to criminalisation whilst not even commenting on the outrage that the two most harmful drugs are not even scheduled yet. under the MDA. It’s right to say that the govt discriminate and avoid their duty by failing to distinguish between peaceful users and misusers or all drugs – the likes a few seemingly biased scientists (who always make the same remarks about certain controlled drugs despite there being great evidence of their relative safety)are seized upon by Raynes are also appologists for the killing and destruction of lives by their insidious views. All we want is equality and yet we get scape-goating – are you calling for prohibtion of alcohol and tobacco for the sake of equality David? Surely if all drugs were on a level playing field the result would be an end to the pointless crusade against the users of some drugs and an amerioration of the harms caused by the criminal market and individuals being able to mix and control their drug choices to avoid the harm of over-use of any drug. see drugequality.org

  • http://www.drugequality.org Darryl Bickler

    Some good points but incorrect on the law as far as how it can be used. Whilst appearing similar to the laws of other countries, Parliament drafted a superb legislative idea for an evolutive law which was flexible and adaptable to evolve with evidence. Certainly if one looks at sections 7, 22 & 31 of the Act you will note the powers afforded to the home secretary to administer the law according to it’s objects and principles (which he patently has not done). The ACMD have believed as has govt in some entirely erroneous ideas about the Act – firstly that alcohol and tobacco are not included in it – this is nonsense and the law extends to all drugs which may cause social harm, secondly that we are bound by international treaties and conventions – nonsense, these are non-incorporated instruments unlike the MDA 1971 and HRA – the ACMD is not so bound, nor is Parliament and the Courts.

    Lastly I met Nutt yesterday, he is not going anywhere, he is going to start his own advisory body so that the press have somewhere to find credible info on drugs.

    David Raynes is guilty of persecuting peaceful users of drugs who are subject to criminalisation whilst not even commenting on the outrage that the two most harmful drugs are not even scheduled yet. under the MDA. It’s right to say that the govt discriminate and avoid their duty by failing to distinguish between peaceful users and misusers or all drugs – the likes a few seemingly biased scientists (who always make the same remarks about certain controlled drugs despite there being great evidence of their relative safety)are seized upon by Raynes are also appologists for the killing and destruction of lives by their insidious views. All we want is equality and yet we get scape-goating – are you calling for prohibtion of alcohol and tobacco for the sake of equality David? Surely if all drugs were on a level playing field the result would be an end to the pointless crusade against the users of some drugs and an amerioration of the harms caused by the criminal market and individuals being able to mix and control their drug choices to avoid the harm of over-use of any drug. see drugequality.org

  • Kenneth Eckersley

    Thank God for the sanity and lack of bias of people like David Raynes.

    As CEO of Addiction Recovery Training Services, every day dealing with people who are seeking recovery from all forms of addiction, I find it not helpful that professors with vested interests interfere with drugs policy in order to obscure and divert attention away from the excesses of their psychiatric and pharmaceutical colleagues.

    Any truly scientific drugs advisory body should deal – not just with those addictive substances currently defined as illegal, but also with licensed and prescribed drugs.

    How does Nutt for instance classify the benzodiazepine range of hypnotic and addictive drugs, and how does he help the thousands of little old ladies who have been on such prescription drugs and suffering their side effects for decades.

    They are all valuable consumers of his sorts of pharmaceutical products and so must be maintained as customers, conveniently paid for by the taxpayer.

    Alan Johnson was not a coward, quite the reverse.

  • Kenneth Eckersley

    Thank God for the sanity and lack of bias of people like David Raynes.

    As CEO of Addiction Recovery Training Services, every day dealing with people who are seeking recovery from all forms of addiction, I find it not helpful that professors with vested interests interfere with drugs policy in order to obscure and divert attention away from the excesses of their psychiatric and pharmaceutical colleagues.

    Any truly scientific drugs advisory body should deal – not just with those addictive substances currently defined as illegal, but also with licensed and prescribed drugs.

    How does Nutt for instance classify the benzodiazepine range of hypnotic and addictive drugs, and how does he help the thousands of little old ladies who have been on such prescription drugs and suffering their side effects for decades.

    They are all valuable consumers of his sorts of pharmaceutical products and so must be maintained as customers, conveniently paid for by the taxpayer.

    Alan Johnson was not a coward, quite the reverse.

  • David Hart

    David Raynes: (“Government … had to err on the side of caution): Don’t forget that while cannabis is harmful, so are the consequences of its prohibition. Therefore, the precautionary principle, which I think you are alluding to, should not be lightly invoked when its consequences are mass criminalisation. As an extreme thought experiment, say some tentative new research came out linking caffeine with some disease, say throat cancer for example. Under your logic, erring on the side of caution would justify making it a criminal offence to posess tea, coffee etc.

    Clearly this would be unjust. With any drug, we need research to produce as accurate a picture of the risks as we can get, but only once we are very sure that the risks of the drug are worse than the risks of criminalising it can a serious case be made for prohibition.

    In general, while the risks of a particular drug should not be underestimated, it is also important that they not be overstated – because no government should be in the business of arresting its citizens on spurious, exaggerated health scare grounds.

    Also, if Professor Nutt has, as Professor Murray claims, “played fast & loose with the statistics”, can we have a presentation and analysis of said statistics please?

    Kenneth Eckersley: I would be very careful about describing yourself as the CEO of Addiction Recovery Training Services within the same sentence as your complaint about vested interests. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out the irony.

    You are right, of course that a drugs advisory body should deal with all drugs, currently scheduled or otherwise (I would add ‘addictive or otherwise as well – why would we want to ignore non-addictive but potentially harmful drugs, as you seem to suggest?). Isn’t this exactly what Nutt has tried to do?

    You don’t need to ask how Nutt classifies benzodiazepines; just read his Lancet paper from which this whole kerfuffle ultimately stems. They are ranked 7th on the scale of harm, between ketamine and amphetamine. I am not a scientist; I cannot say with any evidence whether I think he is right, but if anyone contends he is wrong, they should produce scientific evidence to demonstrate this.
    However, you seem to suggest that Nutt has a vested interest in ignoring the problems of ‘thousands of little old ladies’ who are dependent on benzodiazepines. Can you back up this implication with anything concrete? More importantly, if Nutt has somehow damaged their interests, how do _you_ propose to help said benzodiazepine-dependent patients?

    In general, like David Raynes, if you support the status quo as regards prohibition, all you need to do is provide compelling evidence that prohibition is an effective and humane way of reducing drug-related harms. That’s all I ask, and if it’s true, it isn’t much to ask; if it’s not, then you should not stand in the way of those who seek a more rational, pragmatic drug policy.

  • David Hart

    David Raynes: (“Government … had to err on the side of caution): Don’t forget that while cannabis is harmful, so are the consequences of its prohibition. Therefore, the precautionary principle, which I think you are alluding to, should not be lightly invoked when its consequences are mass criminalisation. As an extreme thought experiment, say some tentative new research came out linking caffeine with some disease, say throat cancer for example. Under your logic, erring on the side of caution would justify making it a criminal offence to posess tea, coffee etc.

    Clearly this would be unjust. With any drug, we need research to produce as accurate a picture of the risks as we can get, but only once we are very sure that the risks of the drug are worse than the risks of criminalising it can a serious case be made for prohibition.

    In general, while the risks of a particular drug should not be underestimated, it is also important that they not be overstated – because no government should be in the business of arresting its citizens on spurious, exaggerated health scare grounds.

    Also, if Professor Nutt has, as Professor Murray claims, “played fast & loose with the statistics”, can we have a presentation and analysis of said statistics please?

    Kenneth Eckersley: I would be very careful about describing yourself as the CEO of Addiction Recovery Training Services within the same sentence as your complaint about vested interests. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out the irony.

    You are right, of course that a drugs advisory body should deal with all drugs, currently scheduled or otherwise (I would add ‘addictive or otherwise as well – why would we want to ignore non-addictive but potentially harmful drugs, as you seem to suggest?). Isn’t this exactly what Nutt has tried to do?

    You don’t need to ask how Nutt classifies benzodiazepines; just read his Lancet paper from which this whole kerfuffle ultimately stems. They are ranked 7th on the scale of harm, between ketamine and amphetamine. I am not a scientist; I cannot say with any evidence whether I think he is right, but if anyone contends he is wrong, they should produce scientific evidence to demonstrate this.
    However, you seem to suggest that Nutt has a vested interest in ignoring the problems of ‘thousands of little old ladies’ who are dependent on benzodiazepines. Can you back up this implication with anything concrete? More importantly, if Nutt has somehow damaged their interests, how do _you_ propose to help said benzodiazepine-dependent patients?

    In general, like David Raynes, if you support the status quo as regards prohibition, all you need to do is provide compelling evidence that prohibition is an effective and humane way of reducing drug-related harms. That’s all I ask, and if it’s true, it isn’t much to ask; if it’s not, then you should not stand in the way of those who seek a more rational, pragmatic drug policy.