Probe into government drugs body
Updated on 02 November 2009
In the wake of the sacking of drugs adviser Prof David Nutt, the Home Office orders a review of the work of the government's drugs advisory committee. Andy Davies reports.
The news comes comes as more scientists threatened to step down over the sacking of the committee's former chairman.
Committee members have called for "clarity and assurances" from ministers about how their advice will be treated in future.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the Commons today the panel's work was invaluable, but he had decided to sack Professor David Nutt because he had lost confidence in him.
Prof Nutt told Channel 4 News that he felt politicians didn't listen to drug experts but that there wasn't a personal element to the sacking.
"You'll have to ask [Alan Johnson] whether there was a personal element in his sacking me.
"I think this is a really critical discussion about the nature of evidence and the way politicians understand evidence.
"Having read that letter [that Alan Johnson published in the Guardian] I begin to understand the problem.
"He makes an assertion at the end of his letter: "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."
"The analogy I'm making between the harms of drugs and other harms is a political point but here he has made a scientific assertion.
"Apparently he knows the facts that there are significant differences in numbers but he hasn't presented those numbers to us.
"He believes that what he thinks is true - he believes these facts but he doesn't know them and that's the problem.
"Politicians think that they know the facts but scientists know the facts."
