DAVID NUTT SAGA HAS MAKINGS OF SATIRICAL SCREENPLAY

I'm obviously no expert in psychoanalysis, but it's a more than reasonable
layman's bet that David Nutt's unfortunate manner is not totally
unconnected with his somewhat unfortunate surname.

Kids can be so clinically cruel, can't they, and it's hard to imagine that
the playground bullies would have deprived themselves of such an obvious
opportunity for linguistic torture in his formative years.

And when Mr Nutt duly became Professor Nutt, his glow of academic
achievement cannot but have been undermined by the fact that he had
suddenly become the real-life incarnation of a character representing one
more mirthless milestone in Eddie Murphy's plummeting career.

There, surely, is the root cause of the tantrum he threw when his
suggestions on drugs classification were rejected by the Home Secretary,
and the vendetta he continues to wage after being relieved of those
advisory responsibilities.

Now there is no remotely credible dispute that, in terms of damage caused
and lives blighted, cannabis is relatively low in the league table of
substance abuse - tobacco kills many more people, alcohol is infinitely
more disruptive to society at large.

Whether horse riding represents a greater risk to life and limb is a
statistical moot point: by and large sticking your hand in an open fire is
less likely to kill you than lighting up in a gas-filled room, but that
still doesn't make it a sensible idea.

Trying to come up with a policy that dissuades people from taking such
unnecessary risks is so difficult, such a delicate balance, that there is
can never be a 'right' way or a 'wrong' way, merely a best guess.

That is and must remain the responsibility of the government of the day -
so for Professor Nutt to toss his toys out of the pram because of a
dispute about alphabetical niceties was at once pathetic and grossly
unprofessional.

Infinitely worse, however, has been his reaction since Alan Johnson gave
him the order of the boot, scuttling round the TV studios and firing off
letters to The Times in an attempt to upgrade his personal spat into a
monumental political row - effectively blackmailing his former colleagues
into resigning in sympathy by declaring that "no self-respecting
scientist" would tolerate the ignominies he has supposedly suffered.

It's not unknown, of course, for scientists to have an exaggerated idea of
their own importance, but rarely has one hoisted the self-indulgent
tendency to such intolerable levels.

It has all the ingredients, surely, of a satirical screenplay.

The Petulant Professor, perhaps, or the Pompous Professor - or why not
Professor Pillock?