British Government Fires Outspoken Professor From Drug Post

The British government has dismissed David J. Nutt, a pharmacology professor who headed the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, after he suggested that marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco and that the government’s approach to classifying drugs had become politicized, the BBC reported. The home secretary, Alan Johnson, asked for Mr. Nutt’s resignation. A spokesman for Mr. Johnson said that Mr. Nutt’s comments “damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs.” But Mr. Nutt, a pharmacologist who teaches at both Bristol University and London’s Imperial College, said he could not “mislead” the public about the dangers of drugs just because the government had a message it wanted to convey. A spokesman for the opposition party, Chris Huhne, said: “What is the point of having independent scientific advice if as soon as you get some advice that you don’t like, you sack the person who has given it to you?” If the government would not listen to the advice of experts, Mr. Huhne said, it might as well have “a committee of tabloid newspaper editors to advise on drugs policy.”