DRUGS POLICY: SHOOTING UP THE MESSENGER

Professor David Nutt is an expert in his field: a professor of
psychopharmacology at Bristol University and head of
neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. He knows more
about the brain's responses to anxiety, addiction and sleep than any
politician or media commentator. He is precisely the sort of man who
should be helping the government shape its drugs policy, which is why
he was appointed and then reappointed to serve as chairman of the
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. That is also why it is such a
disgrace that Alan Johnson, the home secretary, sacked him late
yesterday afternoon for having the temerity to point out some obvious
truths about the government's populist and unthinking handling of the
issue.

Mr Johnson, it seems, welcomes independent advice when it agrees with
his own prejudices but does not have the strength of character to
listen to people who tell him difficult truths.

Perhaps he would rather Professor Nutt had continued to tolerate past
practice, which was to repeatedly advise the government that not all
illegal drugs are as dangerous as some influential newspapers claim,
and that not all legal ones are safe, and then find that advice
rejected just as repeatedly by ministers.

Instead the professor made his views public this week, in a speech and
in a pamphlet for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. In it, he
confronted government policy.

But what is the point of having an independent panel of experts if its
members are sacked when they offer expert advice?

In a statement yesterday the Home Office said it remained "determined
to crack down on all illegal substances and minimise their harm to
health and society as a whole". Nothing Professor Nutt believes
contradicts the important part of that statement the need to
minimise the harm drugs cause.

But he is not the only person to see the idiocy in a policy that
declares some drugs (cannabis among them) illegal, while others
(alcohol, obviously) are not. "Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful
drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is
ranked ninth," he argued. "Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful,
are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively."

Mr Johnson is the second home secretary to find Professor Nutt's views
challenging, but the only one to sack him. When Professor Nutt pointed
out to Jacqui Smith that 100 people die a year from riding horses, and
only 30 from ecstasy, the press got excited.

But no one could show that it wasn't true. Drugs cause harm. Drugs law
is a fraught issue.

A brave minister would take advice and accept that the government
might be in the wrong.

Shooting the messenger is stupid and dangerous.