David Nutt

Professor David Nutt is the Edmond J Safra Chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. He was previously chair of the government Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs.

Wednesday

David Nutt

Why whisky may be worse for you than cocaine

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has hit out at the longstanding US ban on cocaine, in response to Donald Trump’s crackdown on the drugs trade. ‘Cocaine is illegal because it is made in Latin America, not because it is worse than whisky’, Petro argued last week, adding that ‘scientists have analysed this’. He also suggested that the global cocaine industry could be ‘easily dismantled’ if the drug was legalised worldwide. Although I was not consulted directly by Petro, I am one of the scientists he was referring to who have analysed the harms of various drugs. In 2010, I was the lead author of a Lancet paper which argued for the first time that alcohol was more harmful than cocaine.

Thursday

David Nutt

Let’s face it, we need to introduce minimum pricing on alcohol — and legalise other drugs

In the last few years alcohol has become the leading cause of death in men under 50 years of age, and it will soon achieve a similar deadly status in women. Alcohol-induced liver deaths have quadrupled in the past 40 years whereas deaths from heart and lung disease have halved. The reasons for this are well established - alcohol is cheaper and more easily available than it has been since the gin-epidemic of the 1700s and half of all 15-16 year olds are becoming dangerously intoxicated at least once a month. A 21 year woman was recently given a liver transplant for cirrhosis induced by her having essentially an alcohol-only diet since aged ten. Alcohol misuse costs the UK about £30 billion per year of which about £3.