Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Sunday 1 November 2009

Dr Les King resigns from ACMD in support of Professor Nutt

It has just been reported that Dr Les King has resigned from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in support of Professor David Nutt who was sacked by Alan Johnson on Friday.


Dr King, who is well respected in this field and was previously head of the Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Forensic Science Service said:

There is a very strong feeling among the council's members.
I'm not going to say just how many I think might resign but there is an extremely angry feeling among most council members.
Amongst the scientists, I think a number will resign. It doesn't need the whole council to resign for the thing to stop working.
It will be interesting to see how many more members of the ACMD do the same in the coming days. The government has made it clear that they are not interested in their evidence so it would seem the logical thing to do.

4 comments:

Cardinal Richelieu's mole said...

Given this government's commitment to spin and lie, reinforced by a ready willingness to indulge in personal smears, it is astonishing that anyone serious would want to be associated with it, even if their involvement is confined to provision of advice.

Recall that one Metropolitan Police chief was so wary of Home Secretary Blunkett that he even tape recorded their telephone conversation on at least one controversial matter.

New Labour has done very serious damage indeed to our country.

Anonymous said...

it would seem that the decision makers feel they do not need science to help make law anyway. next time they should just employ people that produce science to fit with what laws they wish to make. no wonder the scientists are disgruntled when their hard work they do for free is not correctly acknowledged and put into policy. surely the voters will now know that drug policy has always been based on something other than science. it is a real shame because it means more harm is done by policy than good if it dosent follow what happens in the real world.
maybe they can use a policeman to guess what is going on at a chemical level. that way government and police can both be happy and anyone deemed to be using a relatively safe drug can go to prison and have tax payers financing the courts and jail system. the idea of harming someone and families with penalty because they "may" harm themselves is ridiculous to begin with let alone placing a drug in the incorrect schedule. all these policies have only led to the massive black market problem we have today.

Anonymous said...

This is the same as what reagan did when he got the results of the ledaine commission/study into cannabis.
When he was advised that cannabis was not as harmful as they wanted it to be, he simply shelved the papers and had a go at the people that produced the work. as far as he was concerned they would not produce science to that effect on his watch!

Anonymous said...

"Alan Johnson say..."Sod science, let me jail more people"