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The UK's chief drugs adviser has been sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson after criticising government policies.

Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C.

He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said drugs classification was being politicised.

The home secretary said he had "lost confidence" in his advice and asked him to step down.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is the UK's official drugs advisory body.

In a letter, the home secretary wrote: "I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy and have therefore lost confidence in your ability to advise me as Chair of the ACMD.

some tabloid wrote:Home Secretary "Goes Postal"

Editorial The Guardian, Saturday 31 October 2009 wrote: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.

100 people die a year from riding horses, and only 30 from ecstasy,

kenneal wrote:

100 people die a year from riding horses, and only 30 from ecstasy,

That statement is a bit disingenuous and unscientific. The 100 dying from riding horses should be related to the number who partake in the activity as should the number dying from taking ecstasy. It's the rate that is important not the absolute numbers.

After all, not many people die in this country from playing Russian roulette but that doesn't mean its less dangerous than drinking alcohol, riding horses or taking ecstasy.

foodinistar wrote:Since when was drug categorisation a science?

Vortex wrote:Advisors don't make policy.

Those who appoint advisors can receive MULTIPLE streams of information in order to make strategic decisions.

A single advisor probably doesn't have access to the other data sources, and so should probably refrain from making public announcements.

RalphW wrote:......... and how much society accepts it depends on how much money can be made out of it by the controlling elements of society.