Did Home Secretary Alan Johnson realise the can of worms he was opening when he sacked Professor Nutt?
When so-called “New Labour” came to power in 1997 we were promised evidence based policy; the idea was to have policies in all sorts of areas which could actually be shown to work and which were based on hard evidence rather than wishful thinking. It was one of those things that was easy to say and looked good on paper, but it was always going to be a difficult promise to apply to the sort of drugs policy we have, one based on prohibition.
There is a basic law with science which is not negotiable and which is fundamental to what science is: If you can’t measure it, you can’t do science on it. Science, in fact, is the ability to quantify and measure things, so the need to be able to measure things in a statistically valid way is an absolute requirement.
Any scientist who takes on the job of providing the evidence for the harmfulness or otherwise of illegal drugs therefore has a big problem from the word “go”. He can only really measure what he can see, which means the visible results of illegal drug use. This has to mean the reported effects which are discovered as a result of something happening, the fact that these drugs are illegal means that no studies can be done on the user group in the way they can be done with any other substance or pastime.
Being illegal, it isn’t possible to sample the user group, yet that is what any assessment of relative harm has to do. If all the data you have comes from the blue light services – be it emergency call-outs or acts of enforcement – the data is going to be skewed. You simply aren’t going to see the non-problematic users, or those who keep their heads down and don’t get busted.
So into all this mess come the people in the government’s advisory body on drug misuse – the ACMD. Collecting such data and trying to make sense of it was Prof Nutts job. Now this blog has often criticised the weak science underpinning drugs policy and indeed for the lack of attention drawn to the hopelessly inadequate methods used to collect what data they have , but even given the skewed nature of the data Prof Nutt’s assessment of relative harms were enough to undermine the basic reasoning which is at the heart of government policy. Alan Johnson realised where this would lead and was thus keen to stop the debate before it had a chance to get going, if that were to happen the essential logic of prohibition would collapse.
Assessing the harm caused by drugs has another dimension as well, in that because the drugs are illegal users have no idea what they are taking in terms of dose or how pure the drug is. If the users have no idea, then the blue light services who pick up the pieces and thus provide the data have even less. Again, the collected data will be skewed and will show inflated levels of harm caused by the uncertain supply side caused by the prohibition law. What this means of course is that any comparison between a legal drug such as alcohol and an illegal one like cannabis is skewed by the different regimes each drug is governed by. So for illegal cannabis to be judged as less harmful than legal alcohol is even more depressing for supporters of the present policy. Such a debate simply could not be allowed to take place.
So it is into this minefield that Professor Les Iversen steps. Les Iversen is a retired professor of pharmacology and is a specialist in neuropharmacology, the study of how drugs or chemicals affect the brain and nervous system. As soon as his appointment was announced the usual suspects in the media went into bouts of hysteria. As the Sun put it
Oh no, Nutt again! Drug Tsar; dope is safer than fags
Yeah well, that’s the sort of braindead comment you might expect from the Sun, but it wasn’t confined to that gutterpress hate-rag. Fact is over the years Prof Iversen has been quite frank about cannabis and it’s potential for harm and it’s just the sort of thing the prohibition movement doesn’t want to hear. Perhaps in a damage limitation effort, Prof Iversen has tried to back track on his earlier comments. According to the BBC
In an article in 2003, he wrote that cannabis had been “incorrectly” classified as a dangerous drug for nearly 50 years and said it was one of the “safer” recreational drugs
Not only that, but as the Mail reported in his book “The Science Of Marijuana” published in 2008 he wrote
The more extravagant claims about super-potent cannabis suggesting that recreational users today are exposed to a wholly different drug from the one their parents may have consumed 20 to 30 years ago are not supported by the evidence.
And also
‘Cannabis can cause anxiety, agitation and anger among politicians. The consequences of this cannabis-induced psychological distress syndrome include over-reaction with respect to legislation and politics and a lack of distinction between use and misuse of cannabis.’
Yet, despite his extensive research into the several thousand years of history of human use of cannabis Les Iversen has presumably done, in the last year or so he seems to have radically changed his mind to something more in tune with government thinking, as the local London rag The Metro reported back in June last year:
New potent forms of cannabis may lead to a mental health timebomb, an expert has claimed. Strong skunk could have long-term health risks, including a significantly higher risk of schizophrenia. Heavy users are thought to have a 40 per cent greater risk of developing the illness. Skunk is now more popular than traditional resin imported from Morocco – and it has three or four times the psycho-active ingredient, THC. ‘Skunk compared to resin is like a strong wine versus beer,’ said Les Iverson, of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
Now that Metro report is fairly typical of the reefer madness V2.0 reporting we’ve got used to over the past few years, but that fact that Les Iversen was willing to add his voice to it is regrettable. He has also made it clear in several interviews that he’s changed his mind in recent years and that now he’s a safe pair of hands to advise the government in a non-critical way. Well, he hasn’t actually said that, but it’s safe to assume that’s what he means.
However, the media senses blood and the Telegraph expressed what is, perhaps, in the minds of politicians faced with a difficult situation of having made such a big thing of relying on science to provide the evidence base for their policies: Gerald Warner was allowed an extraordinary opinion piece in Saturday’s edition:
Government ‘scientific advisers’: who needs these nuts in white coats?
Who cares? Thanks to climate change scams, swine flu and a whole host of own-goals, the status of the white-coated prima donnas and narcissists has never been lower in the public esteem.
It’s not clear on what basis Gerald thinks policy should be developed if not on evidence, but others might be providing the clues as The Mail reported in the story mentioned above:
But Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said: ‘We need to know very firmly what his views are and why he has seemingly changed them so radically in less than two years.
She is right to be cynical about Prof Iversen’s sudden change of mind, but the second part of her statement is more interesting when she went on to say
And if there is any doubt about what his views are, then his position must also be in doubt.’
So there you have it, if there’s any doubt that Professor Iversen does not support the government line on cannabis than he shouldn’t have the job. Ann Widdecombe is a wonderfully honest politician who often says things that the more astute would never come out with.
The Tory shadow science minister, Adam Afriyie was also depressingly honest when asked for his views on the sacking of prof Nutt. Addressing the science election debate dubbed “geek the vote”, hosted by the Campaign for Science and Engineering the Times Higher Education Supplement reported:
It is right, I think, that any minister and any secretary of state, if they have an adviser, should be able to dismiss them on any terms at all – even if they just don’t like them … they should be at liberty to dismiss them or not use them if they don’t want to. That is absolutely correct.
So it’s pretty clear the way this is going, politicians are fed up with troublesome scientists who tell them things they don’t want to hear. If the Tories win the next election, which is probable, the future for evidence based policy making is bleak indeed.
But in truth the war on drugs is and never has been influenced by science, even by skewed partial science. Neither is it affected by any need to be accountable. Recently representatives from Transform met with Prime Minister Brown to press for a proper cost benefit analysis of the prohibition policy. This is something Transform has been wanting for some time now and last week the Prime Minister sent Danny Kushlick his considered reply. As Danny reported on the Transform blog the considered reply was a kurt “NO”. Brown wrote:
We do not intend to undertake an impact assessment comparing the costs and benefits of different legislative options for domestic drug policy. We see no merit in embarking upon such an undertaking in view of our longstanding position that we do not accept that legalisation and regulation are now, or will be in the future, an acceptable response to the presence of drugs.
As Danny commented
the Government will not review the evidence of efficacy of the current policy or compare it with alternatives because it is committed to the current regime and, without exploring the outcomes of the Misuse of Drugs Act or prohibition, has decided that alternatives are “not acceptable”
This is actually starting to look like denial on the part of government, they are scared to allow any open debate on any aspect of prohibition; they know that if a debate is allowed, or if we actually knew how ineffective and damaging the whole mess is the drugs policy would collapse overnight. There might be a reason for this paranoia and denial and to find it, all we have to do is look to see what’s happening in the Americas, even perhaps in the US. As the Independent on Sunday reported today
After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives.
After 40 years of defeat and failure, America’s “war on drugs” is being buried in the same fashion as it was born – amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and scandal.
The global war on drugs is under pressure like never before, but it seems British politicians and their supporters in the media will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into reform. If the USA really does end the war it started though we will inevitably follow in some way or other. The writing is on the wall for the war on drugs – in large fluorescent spray paint.
11 users commented in " The politics of arrogance, faith and denial "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThey are scared,
Shivering in their boots!!!
The funny thing is most of these politicians probably pick up a massive amount of pharm medcines weekly and are all doped up and dependant on them.
Iversen presumably changed his mind because of the evidence against low CBD cannabis which the ACMD heard and which helped convince Professor Appleby, the National Director of Mental Health that cannabis was wrongly classified at C.
Nutt appeared to ignore it or at least downplay it. Iversen is to be congratulated. Nutt should be condemmned.
Nutt’s personal financial interests with the pharmaceutical companies and his wish to develop a drug to replace alcohol may have had more to do with his bizarre behaviour than with science I suggest.
Note also this item:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/682956/Government-drugs-tsar-was-paid
-by-drug-companies.html
*************************************************
Government drugs tsar was paid by… drug companies
By David Wooding, 17/01/2010
THE government drugs tsar sacked for claiming ecstasy is safer than
booze and fags is on the payroll of a string of pharmaceutical firms.
Prof David Nutt raked in tens of thousands of pounds in consultancy
payments and grants while chairman of the independent Advisory Council
on the Misuse of Drugs.
A leaked Commons report shows he got up to £30,000 a year from firms
such as Glaxo Smith Kline and John Wyeth, the maker of benzodiazepine, a
tranquilliser linked to the deaths of Michael Jackson and actress
Brittany Murphy.
Nutt’s council REFUSED MPs’ pleas to have it reclassified as harmful in
2003. Now Labour’s Jim Dobbin – who chairs the all-party group on
involuntary tranquilliser addiction – has accused the professor of
failing to disclose a “serious conflict of interest”.
*************************
Dogmatism
Through some twist of fate, western society has come to regard dogmatic faith as a virtue. To hold an idea as true despite all evidence to the contrary is an abdication of reason. Convictions are the end of knowledge, not the beginning; they are the enemy of truth more than lies.
Oh dear me David, I honestly thought better of you than to quote from the News of the World – that’s almost worse than quoting the Sun, please don’t abuse the hospitality of this forum like that again. What’s worse – if that were possible – you didn’t quote the full article, you missed the final couple of paragraphs, the last of which reads:
That, I think you will find, is the case.
However, to your more substantive point; I would point out that Prof Iversen hadn’t changed his mind about cannabis classification when the ACMD recommended that cannabis remain at class C and indeed I can’t find any evidence that he agrees with it now.
He has, however, spent a life time studying the drug and I’m afraid I find it odd that he seems to have had such a change of mind in the past year or so, especially given the reason for his apparent change of mind.
He seems to no longer believe that cannabis should be legalised because of the emergence of low CBD “skunk”. If we assume for the sake of argument that all the claims about “skunk” and mental health are true it’s important to remember that it has only come about as a result of organised crime supplying an illegal, unregulated, market. Skunk is indeed a product of prohibition.
You mentioned Professor Appleby. The Times reported in February 2008:
So we have two supposedly clever people who support a regime which created both the dangerous mew version of a previously safe drug and created the distribution network which put the vulnerable people at risk. Logic, it would seem, is not their strong point.
As for your final paragraph David, nothing better describes the war on drugs. Your point was?
If you take the King’s shilling you will always have to stick to the party line. The new group set up by Professor Nutt claims to be ‘independent’ – they are only independent of funding from government sources . Was Professor Nutt speaking ‘independently’ when he sat on the ACMD ? Wouldn’t that have been very difficult in the light of the new facts that he was (is) closely tied up with the pharmaceutical industry and earns hefty fees from them ?
Was it appropriate for Nutt, given his finacial interests and huge share holdings in pharamceuticals to be SO involved with deciding the response on benzos? The fact that it is the NoW who reported it is irrelevant. It seems to be true. Sneering at the NoW as an organ, rather than commenting on the issue is not a good basis for debate. You just lost the point.
The fact that Nutt is SO involved with trying to package another drug to replace alcohol does not strike you as an explanation for his bizarre behaviour? So insignificant that you side step mentioning it? Avoidance remember, is not a problem solving solution.
To get his “Soma” or “Chateux Nutt” to retail sale in the UK he clearly needs to blur the distinction beteen legal and illegal drugs-hence his “Scale of harms” so unscientifically put together by “Delphic Analyis”, with Colin Blakemore and others. I am told incidentally that many of those asked, failed to respond to the Delphic Analyis as they thought it ridiculous.
Nutt after his dismissal, unscientifically represented the debate and evidence on cannabis heard at the ACMD. When it was put to him on BBC News24, my point, that the ACMD had not been unanimous about classification he was almost struck dumb and really struggled.
Iversen’s change of view is very welcome. The real pity is that it has taken so many years of effort to get him to see sense. It should not have taken counting the mental health admissions to do that. Every one of those is a tragedy.
Is cannabis effectively a class A drug for some people, especially those with immature brains? Have you been wrong all along? Was the WHO right in 1997? I can see why you find all this hard to accept. Cannabis will not now become legal in Britain. That debate is over.
Classification B or C was a marginal issue. Government had to be cautious, in so doing it was admitting an earlier mistake with Blunkett’s Blunder.
Governments do not often admit to mistakes.
David
As regards David Nutt’s “synthetic alcohol” idea, it was discussed at some length in the last blog. The idea is so clearly a non-starter – even if it were a good idea to replace booze with mothers little helper, which it isn’t.
But I certainly will criticise you for posting items from The News of the World, especially when you do so selectively! Find a more believable source if you want to quote stuff here please.
You’ve really got it in for Prof Nutt, haven’t you? It really doesn’t do you or your prohibition cause any favours to get so personal David.
The ACMD vote was actually almost unanimous – it was unanimous amongst the scientists apparently, which included Prof Iversen.
You seem to be of the opinion that cannabis could only be legalise if it were safe, you really should know enough about this site by now to know that isn’t the argument UKCIA puts forward. The reason to legalise cannabis is to properly control the trade. If “skunk” really is dangerous as you claim then it shouldn’t be on sale. It wouldn’t be difficult to prevent the sale of low CBD strains either, it’s just a matter of regulating the farmers and seed houses. Your favoured regime of prohibition, if your argument is to be believed, has created a dangerous substance from one which was previously quite safe.
The law reform debate is far from over David, although you and the National Drug Prevention Alliance have been claiming it is for some time.
As for government’s apologising, Labour will learn to apologise for Brown eventually, be sure of that.
“Was it appropriate for Nutt, given his finacial interests and huge share holdings in pharamceuticals to be SO involved with deciding the response on benzos?”
No, he should have declared his interest more openly, or not been involved in that decision.
I’ve also said here and elsewhere that the synthetic alcohol thing is a dreadful mistake on his part – for his PR and credibility. he has said all profits will go to charity but just the mention of the word profits gives me a chill when mentioned by a scientist.
I dont think he deserves a medal or is a hero for telling the truth as he sees it, nor are other scientists who agree or disagree with him. I agree with Nutt on some things and not on others – he doesn’t speak for me, transform, UKCIA, the reform movement. he makes a contribution to the debate form his position of knowledge/authority.
the ACMD drug harm reviews stand on there own merits. I have few issues with the technical side of them – only the recommendations that flow from them: they all call for drugs to be classified within the MDA but do not consider the evidence of what that mean in policy terms re total harms. that is unacceptable and for Nutt and the ACMD unacceptable and unscientific
theres no reason why scientific rigour cant be applied to evaluating policy outcomes/impacts and options. But the ACMD don’t do this re classification and the MDA.
I can see that Prof Nutt being involved with the pharmaceutical industry is a problem to some but I am not sure which way this would bias him. But if we cannot have some one who is paid by these companies and has contacts within the industry then who can we have to be a member of the ACMD.
We can’t have users or producers of illegal drugs since they are criminals and have no right to decide their own fate.
Maybe not the police since they are biased to their own industry of law enforcement (which of course needs laws to enforce).
No healthcare professionals since they have similar connections to the pharmaceutical industry.
No politicians since they are too cowardly to make difficult decisions.
So we may be left with people who have no knowledge of the subject and no interest in it to make a judgement. In legal cases this bias is avoided by the use of a jury – so why not just choose the next 2 dozen or so people who are eligible for jury service across the UK to oversee the experts’ evidence. People may then believe that the decisions were free of bias and the politicians could argue that the choices made were genuinely representative of public opinion.
As an aside I saw a television program on Channel 4 (UK) a few years ago where they did just this with members of the public who were asked to review drugs policy (as a Royal commission would do). They took them to Holland and Switzerland and the panel received testimony from all sorts of experts. They almost unanimously (one man said the arguments convinced him but he could just not bring himself to change his views) decided to legalise or at least have a Dutch style system for cannabis. Once they saw Amsterdam – that is what convinced most of them. I remember many of them being very surprised with the reality of the coffee-shop system and they felt they had been lied to and misled over the problem of drugs and the relative merits of the different solutions.
By the way Washington (WA – USA) has not passed the legalisation bill but it did get 2 out of 7 votes. The other bill (to drop criminal penalties for possession) did not pass but was better supported- If you want to follow this and other stories check out http://www.norml.org (By the way not a mention of ‘Skunk’ on the whole site !!! hmmm)
Whilst Alan Johnson was right to sack Nutt, what a shame he has had to bow to criticism and pressure from psycho-pharmaceutical interests by appointing Iversen as Nutt’s replacement.
I’m not sure whether these two professors are best described as “clones” or “twins”.
In either event, their appointments are a demonstration of the stranglehold the psycho-pharms have on government policies.
Kenneth Eckersley.
C.E.O. Addiction Recovery Training Services
Kenneth
Now I clearly don’t agree with your view of the sacking of Prof Nutt, but I am interested in this comment
What makes this especially interesting is the fact we am hearing the exact same claims against the pharm companies from two very distinct – even opposing – camps.
Firstly, they are coming from what seem to be called the “new abstentionists” – people who generally support a strict prohibition regime with the aim of enforcing abstinence.
The other camp is cannabis law reform campaigners who point out the influence of the pharm companies in both the creation and continuation of prohibition; cannabis of course has many medical uses and could seriously undermine pharm products if legally available. It’s also the case that the main players in the cannabis and mental health debate have similar pharm funding connections.
There is something up when opposing camps produce the exact same argument.
I think what this says to me is that there is something seriously wrong with the way we go about controlling all forms of drugs, be they recreational or medical. The worms in this particular can might be very fat and juicy if we were to look.
all I would like to say is that I cannot for the life of me see how anyone can support the prohibition of cannabis but maintain that the laws regarding alcohol are what is best for the country. There is not one suposed symptom of cannabis that alcohol doesn’t cause and a whole lot worse. I love that prohibitionists ignore the spiralling alcohol problem in this country but will argue to the end that cannabis is evil.
To support the prohibition of a drug from 100% of the population because 0.1% will suffer serious mental health problems is a lalfable stance to take, infact imho prohibition of any drug is a bad idea, proven to be time again in history.
I would also like to point out that if skunk is really such a danger why is it that the term and also the supposed science behind it is unknown to any country besides our own despite the fact that it is such a hot topic in the U.S.
I completely agree with UKCLA, prohibition of cannabis has caused the supposed skunk problem and the idea that continued harsher prohibition will remedy this is ridiculous, if our government was indeed truely concerned for the health of our children regarding this particular plant they would atleast explore options that bring it into some kind of control, the science regarding higher ratio THC/CBD cannabis and the associated increased risk of mental health issues should bring into light that a prohibited drug is not a controlled drug and as such when a drug is particularly harmful in its more potent forms it should be controlled for the safety of our children.
The fact that its easier for children to get a hold of so called ‘skunk’ than it is alcohol is further evidence to support that prohibition as a concept in the interest of protecting our children doesn’t work and could only work if we had the man power to scour any trace of it from Britain, I’m sure thats what a lot of prohibitionists want but it is a day dream that will never be realised, cannabis is far too popular, that hasn’t changed in millennia and its not going to change now!
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