Dr David Nutt: “Let scientists tell you the truth about drugs”

For more than half a century the topic of drugs and their place in society has been hotly contested. The prevailing orthodoxy that drugs are dangerous substances and should be banned by the state has increasingly come in to question in an unprecedented manner. Many nations and regions, such as Uruguay and Colorado, have now legalised the use of cannabis for recreational use and many more plan to do so.

Closer to home, Warwick Students’ Union voted for a motion to implement a ‘Safe and Sensible Drug Policy’. This will entail providing drug testing kits to students to test the purity of their drugs. The SU iterated that the motion does not condone drug use, but merely ensure the safety of students. Nonetheless, the policy acknowledges the high levels of drug use among students and young people, despite its illegality, and the potential dangers of an unregulated black market.

Drugs which are less harmful to the user than alcohol should be available as an alternative

In this fray, Dr David Nutt, a leading neuropsychopharmacologist and former government advisor has been arguing for a more evidence-based approach to assessing illicit drug harms. Using this evidence, he has become one of the most high profile advocates for drug liberalisation. After entertaining him in Costa while he consumed what is in his words is one of the best and most widely consumed drugs –caffeine– we sat down before his talk to the PPE Society to discuss his campaigns and drug policy in the UK.

It was clear Dr Nutt has not always held the views he holds about drugs today. With a burgeoning, mischievous smile he recounts his sixth form years in the 1960s, where he took an active role in arguing for prohibition. He even was the proposition in a debate ‘on why we should keep drugs illegal’.

Interestingly, it was when he spoke to the police, aged 17, about the matter that his views started to change. “They told me it doesn’t matter or not whether drugs are harmful. If they’re illegal we will arrest you”. Given it is explicitly the job of police to enforce the law this seems unsurprising. However, as Dr Nutt recounts, the burgeoning scientific side in him questioned the logic of not caring about the empirical dangers of drugs.

Politicians are in the pockets of the drinks industry

It was essential to shift attention onto the so-called ‘harder drugs’. What about heroin and crystal meth? As Dr Nutt’s eyebrows converge, he tells me that “drugs which are less harmful to the user than alcohol should be available as an alternative to alcohol in a regulated, licenced, controlled market”. Helpfully, Dr Nutt has constructed such a chart which ranks drugs by harm, showing that crystal meth and heroin are above alcohol and would therefore not be subject to his liberalisation drive.

The system Dr Nutt envisages, comprising of heavy regulation, differs from the typical liberal market. ‘I don’t believe in advertising, I don’t believe in promotion. I believe drugs should be sold in pharmacies to be honest’. While wanting to legalise controlled substances, Dr Nutt also advocates clamping down severely on alcohol usage, claiming that “politicians are in the pockets of the drinks industry”, leading to dangerously negligent regulation.

Interestingly some drugs that most consider to be potentially very dangerous, such as MDMA and LSD, are below alcohol in terms of harm. Most parents would never dream of suggesting either of those substances over alcohol, but for Dr Nutt this isn’t the case. ‘The harms of alcohol to the user are significantly higher than the harms of MDMA to the user’, he retorts. So long as the substance was actually MDMA and correct doses were made, he would rather his children use that illicit substance.

It is clear to see how this view could be considered contentious. How can he claim that MDMA is safe when scarcely a month goes by without some death or serious injury caused by the substance? Dr Nutt instantly chuckles and retorts that scarcely any deaths are caused by MDMA itself and rather by copy-cat substances which are sold with the label of MDMA.

What’s more, he alludes to a large media bias that turns a blind eye to alcohol abuse while focusing intensely on illicit substances. ‘You never hear about alcohol poisoning, people literally drinking themselves to death’. Indeed, in 2015 there were a staggering 8,758 alcohol related deaths in the UK.

I was sacked because I had lost faith in the political process

It was evident that Dr Nutt has a deep loathing and cynicism of certain elements of the media and political establishment in the UK. This would be understandable given his sacking from the position of chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in 2009, for disagreeing with the then Labour government’s drug policy.

However, his political apathy emerged a long time before this. ‘I was sacked because I had lost faith in the political process. Politicians don’t give a toss about the harms, they just want to defend themselves against The Daily Mail. Every day the home office debriefs on everything they report’. Dr Nutt’s anger was palpable and I really got the sense that this was a man deeply distrustful of the almost all forms of power in the UK.

When I asked him what he would say to the government regarding illicit drugs, his response was forthright. ‘Get real. Don’t be bowed by The Daily Mail. Do what’s right and let scientists tell you the truth about drugs’.

As we drew our time to a close the elephant in the room remained over whether Dr Nutt himself had used illicit drugs. “Of course!” he enthusiastically replied. “It’s difficult not to use illegal drugs given how many drugs are illegal”. It is clear that while Dr Nutt may be a man of science, his ‘naughty’ activities extend far past running through fields of wheat.