Professor Nutt and his motives

Professor Nutt and his motives

By a UK based member of the ITFSDP

Professor Nutt was sacked by the UK government from his job as Chairman of The UK Advisory council on the Misuse of Drugs, previously he had been head of the technical committee. Now he is active with a few fellow scientists in a new grouping which has no official status whatsoever: http://icsdp.org/

Professor Nutt was given £400K in funding from a London City Trader to set up the ICSDP after he was sacked from his government appointment.

He has a Lancet letter published, explained here

The claim is that alcohol, causes more harm than crack cocaine (well of course it does in total terms, because it is used by far more people).

Is Professor Nutt trying to blur the line between legal and illegal drugs? In fact it goes further than just that. Everything Nutt says has to be looked at through the prism of his expressed wish to create a pharmaceutical replacement for alcohol made by his friends in the pharmaceutical industry where he has/or recently had, very

substantial personal financial investments (over £0.5 million pounds).

In 2006 Nutt wrote an editorial (non peer reviewed article) in the Journal of Psychopharmacology (Editor Professor David Nutt) suggesting a possible replacement for alcohol. He talked about producing a recreational drug with an antidote so that the effects could be immediately reversed. It is suggested that he wishes to use a short-acting benzodiazepine with properties similar to those of the ‘date-rape’ drug Rohypnol.

This 2006 article was followed in a subsequent edition by an article by Professor Robin Room suggesting that inventing the substance was not the problem, /it was the way drugs are classified that was the problem/.

Robin Room, note, was part of the team (with Peter Reuter and others) that completed a report on Cannabis trailed round the world in the spring of 2010 by Amanda Neidpath of the Beckley Foundation. She believes in self- trepanning (boring a hole in the skull) and is a person with whom Nutt has also deliberately associated himself.

In March 2007 Nutt with Professor Colin Blakemore and two others completed a “Hierarchy of Harms” article in the Lancet. They integrated tobacco & alcohol into one scale of drug harms. This was done by “Delphic Analysis”, basically asking /selected/ people many of whom refused to respond.

The suggestion was rejected by government.

Today’s effort is yet another attempt to raise the issue again and to blur the lines. Of course the consequences, if this plan were to be followed, would be, could only be, legalisation and normalisation of any possible substance that people might want to use “recreationally”. Nutt would also get an opportunity to get his pharmaceutical replacement for alcohol to market. He envisages a product added to fruit juice or similar. The likely user base being young people.

THAT is what Nutt is about.

Now importantly Nutt does not deny my overall allegation about his motives. Twice in public meetings I have put this to him, he is unable to answer.

It is important that we constantly explain what he is trying to do.

It is also important to note that in respect of benzodiazepines he was criticised for the way, when at the ACMD, he dealt with allegations of prescribed benzo addiction and damage, made by a Member of the UK Parliament. This allegation may have contributed to his dismissal.

Nutt has also admitted his own illegal drug use. (UK Telegraph November 5th 2009)