We like to think we live in an age of reason, so why is our attitude to drugs plagued by irrationality? Why have successive governments refused to act, and what are the implications for science and for society?

Leading pharmacologist David Nutt speaks to the IAI about the irrationality at the heart of current drug policy, why it matters, and what an evidence-based approach to drugs policy would actually look like.

Nutt is a fierce proponent of rational, science-based drugs policy. He worked as an advisor to the Ministry of Defence, Department of Health and the Home Office under the last Labour government, but repeatedly clashed with ministers over issues of drug harm and classification. In 2009, Nutt published a paper in which he compared the dangers of taking ecstasy with those of horse riding. Shortly after, he was infamously sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, prompting a host of resignations.

Nutt is now chair of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, which he founded in 2010. His book, Drugs without the Hot Air, won the Transmission Prize for Communicating Science in 2014.

Tobias Phibbs: What do you see as the major consequences of our current drug policy of prohibition?

The policy has completely destroyed 50 years of research on a whole range of important drugs, particularly cannabis. It’s some of the greatest censorship of research in the history of humankind.

TP: You advocate an evidence-based approach to drug policy. What would that look like?

Anything less harmful than alcohol would be available from pharmacists, but alcohol would be controlled more severely and only sold in licensed premises, not in supermarkets. It would also include rapidly increasingly the availability of tobacco alternatives.

TP: There are all kinds of factors relating to the effects of drug intake on culture, on interpersonal relationships and so on, that seem very hard to quantify. How do we avoid a crude utilitarianism when discussing the impact of drugs, and the drug policy we consequently advocate?