Professor David Nutt is a British psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, born in Bristol in 1951, who studies how drugs affect the brain. He is Edmond J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and founded the independent scientific charity Drug Science in 2010.
He is also known for his dismissal in 2009 as chair of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after he publicly criticised how drugs are classified. Brian Rose has interviewed him three times on London Real, in 2013, 2016 and 2020, covering drug harms, alcohol, cannabis, psychedelic research and drug policy.
Each interview is listed below in order with a short summary.
Drink? Why Alcohol Is The Most Damaging Drug In The World (February 2020). His most recent interview, covering both his case on alcohol and his psychedelic research. For the background to his dismissal and policy views, watch Drug Science (2013).
Nutt argues that drug laws should follow scientific evidence about harm. His public comparison of the risks of ecstasy with horse riding, and his criticism of how drugs such as cannabis were classified, led to his dismissal as a government adviser in 2009.
Speaking in 2020, Nutt said alcohol causes more harm, death and cost to the NHS than any other drug, yet is so woven into British culture that people do not think of it as a drug. His book Drink? is his guide to understanding and managing it.
In 2013 he described his struggle to get approval for a clinical trial of psilocybin for depression. By 2020 he was deputy head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College, working with Robin Carhart-Harris and Rosalind Watts on LSD, psilocybin and DMT as possible treatments for depression, addiction and anorexia.
Across his interviews Nutt questions the war on drugs in the US and Britain and points to decriminalisation in countries such as Portugal. In 2016 he discussed medicinal cannabis in America and what it could mean for UK policy.
David Nutt is a British psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist, born in Bristol in 1951. He is a professor at Imperial College London, founded the charity Drug Science and is a former chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
Across three interviews with Brian Rose from 2013 to 2020, Nutt talked about how harmful different drugs are, alcohol, cannabis laws, the history of LSD, psychedelic research into depression and addiction, and decriminalisation.
Start with Drink? Why Alcohol Is The Most Damaging Drug In The World from 2020, which covers his book on alcohol and his psychedelic research. Drug Science from 2013 gives the background to his policy views.
Three times: Drug Science in 2013, The Truth About Drugs in 2016 and Drink? in 2020. Two short Success Secrets clips are taken from the later interviews.
In October 2009 the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, dismissed Nutt as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after he publicly criticised the classification of drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy. Earlier that year he had been rebuked for an article comparing the risks of ecstasy with horse riding.
Yes. Speaking on London Real in 2020, Nutt said that by his analysis alcohol causes more harm, death and cost in the UK than any other drug, even though it is so much part of the culture that people rarely think of it as a drug.
Drink? The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health, published in 2020, explains what alcohol does to the body and brain and how to manage drinking. He discussed it with Brian Rose in February 2020.
Official site: drugscience.org.uk
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