Professor David Nutt, the government's chief drug adviser, has been sacked a day after claiming that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.
Nutt incurred the wrath of the government when he claimed in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "The home secretary has asked Professor Nutt to resign as chair of the ACMD [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs]. "In a letter he [Alan Johnson] expressed surprise and disappointment over Professor Nutt's comments which damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs.
When we said that we wanted science what we actually wanted was someone to dress in a white coat look authoritative, stand in front of some boiling retorts or machines going ‘bleep’ and nod along solemnly while we were tough on something. We’re now going to see if Manpower can get us a Magnus Pike impersonator, or maybe one of those people who do the voiceovers in shampoo ads.
It’s not as if there’s any obligation for the government to accept the scientific advice it’s offered. It can always point to other reasons not to legislate accordingly. But that would be to accept that science exists autonomously rather than just being there to lend scienciness to whatever the government decides to do.
Additional question: given this, what does it say about any scientist who would agree to work for the government under these conditions?
They've had it in for him for some time. Again, deeply depressing, and only likely to get worse with the Tories and their copies of Ill-Characterised Phenomenon: An Extremely Long Subtitle That Wildly Misstates The Contents Of This Book, As If They Weren't Bad Enough
Posted by: Alex | October 31, 2009 at 12:02 PM
I was sat in a room full of criminologists on Thursday, and we were all wondering why Nutt hadn't been sacked yet. We can now rest assured.
Posted by: Chris Williams | October 31, 2009 at 01:42 PM
The Nutter was making the point that until Brown the government was going along with ACMD advice, back to the last Tory government. It does seem that the self-confidence of the scientists in their ability to measure relative harm has increased to the point where it is necessarily in contradiction with political imperatives.
I guess that the lunacy of drug science denial will have to become more stark and raving before it becomes as unpopular as climate science denial.
Posted by: skidmarx | October 31, 2009 at 04:18 PM
Additional additional question: Why, given that just about everybody under the age of 50 has tried cannabis, why do so many politicians want to criminalise their earlier selves?
Posted by: Richard J | October 31, 2009 at 06:52 PM
"...why do so many politicians want to criminalise their earlier selves?"
'Cos it proves how politically mature and viable they are.
Posted by: jamie | October 31, 2009 at 08:22 PM
The awful Bill Rammell (who is he?) was on the news this evening saying that ordinary decent people didn't like drugs, so they would find it very hard to understand why these scientists were confusing them with these so-called 'facts' (I paraphrase).
When the ACMD get the idea that their job was something to do with harm, anyway? They should have been given strict instructions to measure the relative depravity, disgustingness and badness of different substances, surely - and all the focus groups they needed to do so.
Posted by: Phil | October 31, 2009 at 11:42 PM
The awful Bill Rammell (who is he?)
A very rude word indeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Rammell
Posted by: Richard J | November 01, 2009 at 12:23 AM
why do so many politicians want to criminalise their earlier selves?
Not at all out of the ordinary for New Labour, is it?
Posted by: ejh | November 01, 2009 at 01:46 AM
Phil - Bill Rammell is:
http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/dead-afghans-and-dead-british-troops-compare-and-contrast/#comment-15775
According to Evan Harris, the Lib Dem's science spokesman, the only obligation of unpaid government scientific advisors who wish to dispute government policy is not to say they are speaking on behalf of the government.
I don't know if the ACMD should be encouraged to measure anything. However slavish their devotion, they might always come of with some facts, which are obviously difficult things.
I note that the talkshow host,George Galloway, was doing his "Won't somebody think of the children?" impression of Reverend Lovejoy's wife on Friday.
The Nutter claimed that cannabis has no lethal dose. Doesn't he know that a kilo of hash flung out of a tower block window could fatally maim passers-by?
Posted by: skidmarx | November 01, 2009 at 01:37 PM
Wait, now Gorgeous George is against cannabis?
The whole thing has been amazingly badly handled. If they'd left it alone, then Nutt's paper might - perhaps - have been picked up by the Guardian and reported, once, on the inside page. Maybe an opinion piece as well. And that would have been it. Indy might have picked it up too if they could spare the manpower. But none of the scum would have touched it for fear of appearing to be soft on drugs (oh god the irony it burns us). One day, couple of stories, and that's it, game over.
But they sacked him, and it's been leading the news for the last three cycles. Muppets.
Posted by: ajay | November 02, 2009 at 09:57 AM
Wait, now Gorgeous George is against cannabis?
He is no a liberal, and don't youse forget it.
I saw someone from the Centre For Policy Studies on the BBC News yesterday, trying to rubbish Nutt and complaining that there were no experts on psychosis on the Council, essentially bigging up Robin Murray and his claim that cannabis signifcantly increases the risk of schizophrenia, which the voices tell me is statistical nonsense.
Posted by: skidmarx | November 02, 2009 at 01:56 PM
He is no a liberal, and don't youse forget it.
Well, no, I know he's an evil blighter, but I thought his evilness went in a different direction: not so much forbidding certain people to inhale certain neurologically active compounds as compelling other people to inhale certain other neurologically active compounds.
Posted by: ajay | November 02, 2009 at 03:02 PM
as compelling other people to inhale certain other neurologically active compounds.
Must admit I haven't been following his chunterings so much recently - is he against the smoking ban then?
Posted by: Richard J | November 02, 2009 at 03:18 PM
Alan (Yes, the Minister) Johnson orders a snap review of a 38-year old body.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/02/drugspolicy-drugs
This really deserves a FFS, doesn't it?
Posted by: Richard J | November 02, 2009 at 04:27 PM
is he against the smoking ban then?
No, that was a "gas the Kurds" reference.
Posted by: ajay | November 02, 2009 at 04:38 PM
He was in favour of gassing the Kurds?
Posted by: ejh | November 02, 2009 at 07:17 PM
This really deserves a FFS, doesn't it
I was thinking more of Brecht....
Posted by: ejh | November 02, 2009 at 07:21 PM
As the song goes,
Ye take the high-brow, and I'll take the low brow
And I'll be snarking afore ye...
Posted by: Richard J | November 03, 2009 at 10:22 AM
He was in favour of gassing the Kurds?
the phrase "when it was neither popular nor profitable" comes to mind.
Georgeous was reasonably prominent in the anti-Saddam movement in the 1980s and an advocate of sanctions at the time of Halabja, but in recent years has calmed down on the subject and engaged in some quite unseemly whataboutery over the casualty numbers during the Telegraph libel case.
Posted by: dsquared | November 03, 2009 at 01:40 PM
I thought he'd said that he had voted for a smoking ban in the commons, but his voting record is here:
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=1405&dmp=811
Muppets
But not quite like Kermit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGrZCq1Nxk
Posted by: skidmarx | November 04, 2009 at 03:55 PM