Nutt: 'Scientists know the facts'
Updated on 02 November 2009
Responding to Health Secretary Alan Johnson's comments in the Guardian today, Prof David Nutt tells Channel 4 News that scientists know the facts whereas politicians think they know the facts.
Writing in the Guardian today, Mr Johnson again explained his rationale for the sacking.
"Professor Nutt was not sacked for his views, which I respect but disagree with," he said.
"He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy."
"Politicians think they know the facts"
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.
"This government has consistently taken the view that it knows better than the experts on the science of drug policy. And now in understand why, because I think they genuinely believe that what they think about drugs is the truth.
"The facts are what they believe not what we tell them."
There were predictions today of mass resignations from the country's drugs advisory panel in protest at Alan Johnson's decision to axe its chairman for criticising the government's policy.
At least two members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) have quit since Professor David Nutt was sacked by the Home Secretary on Friday in a row that is threatening the panel's future.
Writing in the Times today, Prof Nutt warned more of the remaining 28 members could leave, saying: "It seems unlikely that any 'true' scientist will be able to work for this, or future, home secretaries.
"My sacking has cast a huge shadow over the relationship of science to policy. Several of the science experts from the ACMD have resigned in protest and it seems likely that many others will follow suit."
Fellow panel member Dr Les King resigned yesterday, saying Mr Johnson had denied Prof Nutt his right to free speech and called for the advisory panel to become truly independent from politicians.
A second member, pharmacist Marion Walker, is also understood to have quit. Dr King said the government's attitude to the panel has shifted and home secretaries now had a "pre-defined political agenda" when they asked for its expert advice.
In the article published in the Times the professor reiterated his view that ecstasy and cannabis - class A and B drugs respectively - were not in the correct class and that all drugs should be ranked by a "harm" index.
"It is imperative that that the classification of drugs truly reflects their harms, otherwise injustices may occur and the educational message be undermined," he wrote.
"Scientific inquiry into drug harms must also be honest and accurate so that the best quality evidence is available to the experts and government.
"Legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are as harmful as many illegal drugs and currently score highly on our ranking list."
Prof Nutt has said alcohol should rank fifth in the harm index behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco should rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy.
He suggested a way forward, saying: "Create a truly independent advisory council. This is the only realistic way out of the current mess."
