Rethink Policy: Evidence Over Fear Government drug policies often lack a foundation in evidence, leading to misguided public understanding of drug-related risks. The comparison of ecstasy’s relative safety against horse riding, particularly in eventing, highlights the irrationality of current regulations. A data-driven approach reveals that ecstasy, contrary to popular belief, poses less risk than many sanctioned sports, suggesting that reevaluation of drug laws is necessary for a more rational and harm-reductive policy framework. Transcript: Speaker 2 As regular viewers of this show will know, I am just obsessed with the topic of drugs, and I’m really excited to speak with you today as someone who I’ve been trying to get on the show for A long time to give a sort of alternate view of drugs than was given by the previous guests who I had on my show talking about drugs, a certain Mr. Hitchens from the mail on Sunday. So hopefully this will offer something of an antidote to that particular episode. But for those who aren’t aware of you, Professor Nutt, you were the government’s chief drug advisor. You were the UK government’s chief drug advisor, but you got fired. Can you tell us why? Speaker 1 Well, the short answer is for pointing out the government policy wasn’t evidence-based. That was not an insight the government was prepared to take on board, particularly not with the 2010 election on its way. Speaker 2 Sure. Now, some the headlines said, Professor Nut fired for saying that taking ecstasy is safer than riding a horse. Speaker 1 Is that true? It certainly is. Yes. Particularly if you, when you’re riding your horse, you’re jumping over things. Eventing is considerably more dangerous than taking ecstasy. If you look at the harms per hour engaged in the activity, it definitely would be banning eventing and allowing legal consumption of ecstasy if you had a rational policy. (Time 0:00:05)
Scale Harms to Understand Risks Different drugs pose varied harms, affecting users and society in distinct ways. This analysis categorizes nine user-related harms such as death, dependence, and withdrawal, alongside seven societal harms like community disruption and environmental impact. A sophisticated approach known as Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) allows for the scaling and comparison of these harms across different metrics, revealing that while some drugs may be individually more harmful, alcohol emerges as the most harmful overall due to its extensive use and associated societal risks. This conclusion, initially published in The Lancet in 2010, has since been validated by experts in various countries. Transcript: Speaker 1 There are nine harms to the user, and they range from dying every time you take the drug or the risk of death to things like dependence and withdrawal, etc. And there are seven harms to society. And the really sophisticated innovation of MCDA is that you can scale all these different harms because they’re obviously a very different metrics. Death is a very different metric to community disruption from, say, intoxication to deforestation in the Amazon as a result of trying to stop cocaine production. There are many, many different harms, but you can scale them all and compare them all using a ratio scale, ratios of the worst to the least. And that’s what we did. And we had another conference. It went through 20 drugs, scaled them all, weighted them all. And the paper was published again in the Lancet in 2010. And it showed, slightly to my surprise, but it was clearly a reliable outcome because it’s now been replicated by experts in Europe, in Australia and recently New Zealand, that alcohol Is the most harmful drug overall. And that is because of its wide use. It’s not the most harmful drug to the user, drugs like crystal meth, crack cocaine, (Time 0:05:50)
Prohibition breeds corruption and alternative vices The movement for alcohol prohibition gained momentum in the 19th century, largely fueled by women concerned about their partners squandering earnings on alcohol. Despite its roots in societal concern, prohibition led to widespread corruption among law enforcement, exemplified by the rise of speakeasies, or illegal bars, which relied on bribed police for protection. This era of prohibition did not effectively curb alcohol consumption; instead, it sparked an underground network supported by organized crime. The eventual repeal of prohibition in 1933 revealed the failure of the law, and coincided with a shift in focus toward cannabis, marking the beginning of a prolonged campaign against it that continues into the 21st century. Transcript: Speaker 1 Well, they were the people that wanted alcohol prohibition. I mean, this is a movement which really started in the 1860s, 1870s. It was driven most interestingly, it was very, very much driven by women who were seeing their men spending all their weekly earnings on booze at the weekends and argued that we should Stop having bars so that people couldn’t waste their money on booze. It got close to having some kind of power in Britain and obviously it worked in the States. But what people didn’t realize or didn’t predict I think was that alcohol is, it’s very much part of society. People went to great lengths to carry on drinking. And you mentioned speakeasy. What’s a speakeasy? Well, a speakeasy is an underground bar. And how do you keep an underground bar functioning when it’s illegal? Well, you have a policeman standing outside who’s paid off. And in fact, alcohol prohibition in the States has effectively corrupted every American policeman. And that’s why they had to create their untouchables to fight the mafia who were providing the booze to the speakeasies. Of course, they weren’t successful, although they became quite famous. The problem with them was that there was a lot of them. By the time alcohol prohibition was repealed in 1933, there were 35,000 of them. And they were all facing redundancy. And so their boss, Harry Anseling, had decided to come up with a new problem, which wasn’t alcohol, was cannabis. The whole attack on cannabis, which basically has perpetuated right to this, the beginnings of this century in the States, as a, sorry, (Time 0:11:23)