FactCheck: overstepping political lines?
Updated on 02 November 2009
Alan Johnson sacked Professor David Nutt, the government's drug czar, implying he had crossed the line between impartial advice and political campaigning. But how far is too far? FactCheck finds out.
The claim
"He [Professor Nutt] was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy. This principle is well understood and long established."
Alan Johnson, home secretary, letter to the Guardian, 2 November 2009.
The background
Home Secretary Alan Johnson wrote to the government's chief drugs adviser, Professor David Nutt, at the end of last week asking him to resign.
"I have concerns regarding your recent comments that have received so much media attention. It is important that I can be confident that advice from the ACMD [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs] will be about matters of evidence.
"Your recent comments have gone beyond such evidence and have been lobbying for a change of government policy."
The chairman retorted that he was "extremely disappointed" by the home secretary's decision, and two other members of the panel promptly resigned over the weekend in protest.
The Monday newspapers then traded letters between the two. Alan Johnson used a letter in the Guardian to argue that the former drug czar had gone too far in his critique of government drugs policy.
"I do not know which comments were beyond the line or, indeed, where the line was," Professor Nutt responded in the Times. "But the Government has lost its major expert on drugs and drug harms and may indeed lose the rest of its scientific advisers in the field."
So what are the guidelines for government advisers - and did Professor Nutt overstep the mark?
The analysis
According to the Code of Practice on the ACMD's website, the chair and members of the council should "not... engage in specific political activities on matters directly affecting the work of the ACMD".
It may look a simple statement on paper, but it is the interpretation of "political activities" that has caused dispute.
So has David Nutt been "politically active"? Perhaps the best way to assess that is to look at his activities over his year in the ACMD chair.
It is true that the psychiatrist and pharmacologist, based at the University at Bristol and head of the Department of Neuro-psychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College London, has previously clashed over government policy with another home secretary, Jacqui Smith, during his year-long stint as chair.
In February he wrote an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology arguing for a change in the approach to the classification of drugs. In it he compared the risk of taking ecstasy to horse riding.
"Drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse-riding and ecstasy," he wrote.
The article was quickly seized upon by the media and raised in the House of Commons.
The then home secretary, Jacqui Smith, made a statement to the Commons saying; "I made it clear to Professor Nutt that I felt that his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect from him as chair of the ACMD. He apologised to me for his comments, and I have asked him to apologise to the families of the victims of ecstasy, too."
Professor Nutt also apologised to "those who may have been offended" by the comments.
And so the matter may have been laid to rest, until a paper and lecture by Professor Nutt for the Centre for Crime and Justice was released last week.
He defended his horse riding analogy, saying he used it to counter media reporting that "gives the impression that ecstasy is a much more dangerous drug than it is".
So far, so politically neutral. But then the chair of the ACMD went on to take a much more direct political swipe at government policy.
He criticised Jacqui Smith's approach to "err on the side of caution and protect the public", which she cited in her statement to the house when reclassifying cannabis from a class C to a class B drug.
Politicians "distort" and "devalue" research evidence, Professor Nutt stated. "This leads us to a position where people really don't know what the evidence is."
It was only once the drugs expert had resigned that he more openly criticised politicians and the prime minister directly.
Was this political activism, or a campaign against government policy? It depends on your definition. Suffice to say, it was enough for Alan Johnson.
Yet, you may ask, is an independent, unpaid adviser not allowed to voice his private or professional opinion? Yes, says the Code of Practice, so long as it's clear it is not necessarily the view of the ACMD.
Was it clear? Well, before the lecture Professor Nutt was billed as an expert from Imperial College London "a leading academic and policy thinker on drugs policy and Chair of the independent and expert body the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which advises government".
The paper based on the lecture does only credit him with his work for Imperial College, but he does make repeated reference to the council's work in his paper.
The verdict
In the end, it's all about the interpretation. The council's code of practice does limit "political activities on matters directly affecting the work of the ACMD".
Certainly, Professor Nutt did directly criticise the government's approach to drug policy in public on at least two occasions over his 12 months in the chair. He did mention by name the former home secretary Jacqui Smith.
But whether his actions cross the line of political activism and amount to a full-blown campaign is certainly open to debate.
FactCheck rating: 2
How ratings work
Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.
The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.
In the unlikely event that we award a 5 out of 5, our factcheckers have concluded that the claim under examination has absolutely no basis in fact.
The claim
"As for his comments about horse riding being more dangerous than ecstasy, which you quote with such reverence, it is of course a political rather than a scientific point. There are not many kids in my constituency in danger of falling off a horse - there are thousands at risk of being sucked into a world of hopeless despair through drug addiction."
Alan Johnson, home secretary, letter to the Guardian, 2 November 2009.
The analysis
FactCheck couldn't resist having a quick look at the comparison between ecstasy and horse riding.
In Professor Nutt's original article on "equasy", or the addiction to horse riding, he claims that horse riding causes 10 deaths and more than 100 road traffic accidents a year.
In contrast the ACDM, under his chairmanship, found that ecstasy use is linked to an average of around 30 deaths a year.
Yes, they are both very small numbers, but the illegal drug causes three times as many deaths annually as the legal recreational activity.
As for Alan Johnson's comments, his view may be skewed by the geography of his Kingston Upon Hill West and Hessle constituency.
The sources
Alan Johnson's letter to the Guardian, 2 November 2009
Professor David Nutt's letter to the Times, 2 November 2009
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Code of Practice
Equasy - An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms, Professor David Nutt, Journal of Psychopharmacology
Hansard, 9 February 2009
Estimating drug harms: a risky business? Professor David Nutt, Centre for Crime and Justice
MDMA ('ecstasy'): a review of its harms and classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
Your views
You've read the article, now have your say. We want to know your experiences and your views. We also want to know if there are any claims you want given the FactCheck treatment.
Email factcheck@channel4.com
FactCheck will correct significant errors in a timely manner. Readers should direct their enquiries to the editor at the email address above.
