{"id":211,"date":"2009-10-31T09:32:37","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T09:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/2009\/10\/31\/nutts\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T07:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T07:49:11","slug":"nutts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/2009\/10\/31\/nutts\/","title":{"rendered":"Nutts"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February of this year, my supervisor at the time circulated to the members of his group Professor David Nutt’s article<\/a> (*pdf*) Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms<\/em> [1].<\/p>\n

At the time, the Equasy<\/em> article made us chuckle!<\/p>\n

Commentary on the article’s publication made it into the press<\/a> and I followed the story for a time, including the carefully worded apology<\/a> given by Nutt in response to the (then) Home Secretary’s demands.<\/p>\n

I was surprised by the news, which I first read last night but which is in today’s papers, that Professor Nutt has been asked to resign from his position as Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).<\/p>\n

The ACMD is an “independent expert body that advises government on drug related issues in the UK”. It seems to me that the government did not like the advice. The call to resign is prompted by the publication of Estimating drug harms: a risky business<\/a> (*pdf*) [2] by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London.<\/p>\n

The article is an edited transcript of a lecture given by Nutt, which I suspect contributes to its narrative clarity. In the article, Nutt introduces the many factors influencing legislation concerning drugs, acknowledging that the advice of the ACMD is but one voice in a debate subject to media influence, public perception and political opinion. Findings relating public perception and media influence are presented, and the interrelationship between these, and their affect on policy decisions, is discussed. Nutt also presents the scale published<\/a> (*pdf*) in The Lancet in 2007 [3] in which he and his colleagues attempted to parametrize and summarize the risk associated with use of drugs both legal and illegal, resulting in a table that seemed at odds with current drug classification.<\/p>\n

Nutt acknowledges<\/p>\n

\nIn recent years the whole process of determining drug classification has become quite complex and highly politicised.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What I suspect prompted the call for Knutt’s resignation is his criticism of the government’s approach to drugs legislation that is not based on an assessment of harms. He summarises<\/p>\n

\nA fully scientifically-based Misuse of Drugs Act where drug classification accurately reflects harms would be a powerful educational tool. Using the Act in a political way to give messages other than those relating to relative harms undermines the Act and does great damage to the educational message.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is a shame that, given his acknowledgment that the scientific voice was unlikely to be the deciding one in legislation, his attempt to offer a more rigorous and honest perspective has been squashed, and that what his findings have to offer was are not acknowledged for what they are – information that could be used to usefully inform decision-making in a tricky and emotive legislative area.<\/p>\n

1<\/sup> Nutt DJ (2009). Equasy– an overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms. Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 23<\/span> (1), 3-5 PMID: 19158127<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/sup> Nutt D (2009). Estimating drug harms: a risky business? Centre for Crime and Justice Studies<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3<\/sup> Nutt D, King LA, Saulsbury W, & Blakemore C (2007). Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse. Lancet, 369<\/span> (9566), 1047-53 PMID: 17382831<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In February of this year, my supervisor at the time circulated to the members of his group Professor David Nutt’s article (*pdf*) Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms [1]. At the time, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[189,192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-the-phd","category-nature-network"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3045,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/3045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/erikacule\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}