Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is a British government advisory committee whose work concerns how illicit drugs are classified in relation to risks to individuals and society. The book presents it chiefly through the controversy surrounding its chair, David Nutt, whose attempt to compare drug harms empirically brought the committee into public view and ended his tenure.

Role and remit

The committee advises the government on the classification of illicit drugs, using assessments of their risks to individuals and society. That remit places it at the intersection of scientific evaluation and public policy: judgments about relative harm can inform formal categories, but can also challenge the assumptions behind them.

David Nutt’s approach

An expert on addiction and benzodiazepines, including Valium, Nutt sought to quantify the risks of psychoactive substances, both legal and illegal. His comparisons ran against familiar public rankings: he concluded that alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis and that Ecstasy was safer than riding a horse. These claims made comparative risk assessment itself a point of contention, rather than leaving drug classification to rest on convention alone.

Dismissal and significance

In 2009, the Home Secretary dismissed Nutt from his position as chair. Nutt later identified his appearance on live breakfast television, where he defended the view that LSD was less harmful than alcohol, as the statement that led to his dismissal. The episode shows how a committee charged with advising on drug risks could become a focus of conflict when empirical comparisons collided with political expectations. The account establishes the dismissal and the dispute over Nutt’s claims, but does not detail subsequent changes to the committee or its policies.