NEWSFOCUS on February 3, 2014 www.sciencemag.org The Dangerous Professor Downloaded from David Nutt wants to make drug policies science-based and give the world a safe alternative to alcohol. If only politicians would listen, he says LONDON—David Nutt is trying to develop develop further. “We know people like alco- scientifi cally unfeasible. a new recreational drug that he hopes will hol, they like the relaxation, they like the Nutt wasn’t surprised. As a fi erce advo- be taken up by millions of people around sense of inebriation,” Nutt says. “Why don’t cate of what he says are more enlightened, the world. No, the 62-year-old scientist isn’t we just allow them to do it with a drug that rational drug policies, he has been a light- “breaking bad.” In fact, he hopes to do good. isn’t going to rot their liver or their heart?” ning rod for a long time. Politicians, in His drug would be a substitute for alcohol, to But when he presented the idea on a Nutt’s view, make irrational decisions about create drinks that are just as intoxicating as BBC radio program late last year and made drugs that help them win votes but cost beer or whiskey but less toxic. And it would an appeal for funding, many were appalled. society dearly. Drug policy is often based on come with an antidote to reverse its effects, A charity working on alcohol issues criti- the moral judgment that people should not allowing people to sober up instantly and cized him for “swapping potentially one use drugs, he says. Instead, it should refl ect drive home safely. addictive substance for another”; a com- what science knows about the harms of dif- Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at mentator called the broadcast “outrageous.” ferent drugs—notably that many are far Imperial College London and a former top News-papers likened his synthetic drug to less harmful than legal substances such as adviser to the British government on drug soma, the intoxicating compound in Aldous alcohol, he says. The plan for a synthetic policy, says he has already identified a Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World. alcohol alternative is his own attempt to couple of candidates, which he is eager to Some of his colleagues dismissed the idea as reduce the damage that drug use can wreak; THOMPSON IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON/LAYTON CREDIT: 478 31 JANUARY 2014 VOL 343 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS Outspoken. Nutt says politicians often have a “primi- Clinical Science at the U.S. National Institute “Because one’s illegal.” tive, childish” way of thinking about drugs. on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a job he “Why is it illegal?” held for 2 years. Today, he runs the department “Because it’s harmful.” he believes it could save millions of lives and of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial “Don’t we need to compare harms to billions of dollars. College, using modern imaging techniques determine if it should be illegal?” Such views—and the combative way in to see what happens in the brain when people “You can’t compare harms from a legal which he espouses them—frequently land take drugs or develop an addiction. activity with an illegal one.” Nutt in fierce disputes. Newspaper com- But his biggest contribution to science, Nutt says this kind of circular logic crops mentators have called him “Professor Nutty” he says, was a discovery he made quite early up again and again when he discusses recre- or “the dangerous professor.” In 2009, he in his career: that some molecules don’t just ational drugs with politicians. “It’s what we was sacked from his position as chair of the block receptors in the brain, but actually have would call ‘splitting’ in psychiatric terms: United Kingdom’s Advisory Council on the the opposite effect of the molecules that nor- this primitive, childish way of thinking Misuse of Drugs, tasked with giving scien- mally stimulate them—and in doing so shut things are either good or bad,” he says. tifi c advice to the home secretary, after he down a brain pathway. Nutt called these mol- He’s often that outspoken. He likens the criticized a government decision on cannabis. ecules contragonists, and he has made a sec- way drug laws are hampering legitimate sci- But in November 2013, he received the ond career out of being a bit of a contragonist entific research, for instance into medical John Maddox Prize for standing up for sci- himself, trying to calm society’s overexcited applications for psychedelic compounds, ence. “In circumstances that would have responses to the steady stream of alarming to the church’s actions against Galileo and humiliated and silenced most people,” news about drugs. Copernicus. When the United Kingdom wrote neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, recently banned khat, a plant containing a one of the judges, “David Nutt continued to Fictional affl iction stimulant that’s popular among people from affi rm the importance of evidence in under- In 2009, Nutt published an article in the the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Penin- standing the harms of drugs and in develop- Journal of Psychopharmacology comparing sula, he compared the decision with banning ing drug policy.” the harms from ecstasy with those caused by cats. And he accuses the Russian govern- horse riding. Every 10,000th ecstasy pill is ment of deliberately using alcohol to weaken Controversial comparisons likely to hurt someone, he calculated, while the opposition. “However miserable they are, David Nutt does not look like a danger- ous professor. Short and heavyset, he has a jovial, round face and an old-fashioned mus- tache; one could mistake him for a London “ You don’t get to be on the front page of The Lancet and taxi driver. He limps slightly, has a down-to- The New York Times unless you sharpen your arguments a earth way of speaking, and laughs a lot when little bit. I can live with that.” he talks. “He is a real personality,” says —Jürgen Rehm psychopharmacologist Rainer Spanagel of Heidelberg University in Germany. “You can be in a meeting and almost have a result, “[ Nutt] is a polarizing fi gure and the drug policy area is then he will come in an hour late, stir every- thing up, and in the end convince everyone polarized enough.” —Jonathan Caulkins of his position.” Nutt says he realized at an early age that “understanding how the brain works is the most interesting and challenging question an average horse enthusiast can expect a seri- however much they hate their government and in the universe.” When he was a teenager, ous accident every 350 hours of riding. The their country, they will just drink until they kill his father told him a story of how Albert sport, he concluded, was more dangerous themselves, so they won’t protest,” he says. Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, took a dose than the notorious party drug. That “raises But it’s his stance on cannabis that got him of that drug and felt that the bike ride home the critical question of why society tolerates sacked. In early 2009, ignoring advice from took hours instead of minutes. “Isn’t that —indeed encourages—certain forms of Nutt’s advisory council, Smith upgraded can- incredible, that a drug can change time?” he potentially harmful behaviour but not others nabis from class C to class B, increasing the asks. On his fi rst night as an undergraduate in such as drug use,” he added. maximum penalty for possession from 2 to Cambridge, he witnessed the powers of drugs Politicians were not amused, and Nutt’s 5 years in prison. A few months later, Nutt again when he went drinking with fellow whimsical reference to a fictional afflic- criticized the decision in a public lecture, students. Two of them couldn’t stop. “I just tion he called equine addiction syndrome, arguing that “overall, cannabis use does watched them transform themselves. One of or “equasy,” did not help. In his book not lead to major health problems” and that them started wailing and crying and the other Drugs - Without the Hot Air, Nutt provided tobacco and alcohol were more harmful. became incredibly hostile.” his account of a phone conversation he had When media reported the remarks, Alan During his clinical training, Nutt says he with U.K. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith Johnson, who succeeded Smith as home sec- treated many alcoholics but failed “to get any- after the paper was published. (Smith calls it retary in mid-2009, asked him to resign. “He one interested in how to reduce their addiction an “embroidered version” of their talk.) was asked to go because he cannot be both a to the drug that was harming them.” He set Smith: “You can’t compare harms from a government adviser and a campaigner against out to answer that question, fi rst in the United legal activity with an illegal one.” government policy,” Johnson wrote in a letter Kingdom, later as the chief of the Section of Nutt: “Why not?” in The Guardian. www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 343 31 JANUARY 2014 479 Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS Nutt did not go quietly. With financial sharpen your arguments a little bit,” Rehm they may be, would constitute a quantum help from a young hedge fund manager, says. “I can live with that.” leap of progress towards evidence-based and Toby Jackson, he set up a rival body, the more rational drug policy in Canada and else- Independent Scientifi c Committee on Drugs, Ranking the drugs where,” two Canadian drug scientists wrote “to ensure that the public can access clear, In 2010, Nutt sparked a new fi restorm when in Addiction.