David Nutt

Alcarelle and GABA Labs

Building on his extensive research on the role of GABA in the brain, and the psychopharmacology of alcohol, since 2014 Nutt has spoken publicly about his desire to bringing-to-market a compound which could act as a "safer" replacement to alcohol and mimic some of its effects – namely, "conviviality" – by affecting the GABA receptor without the negative health impacts of alcohol. Nutt has named the compound "Alcarelle", but has not yet disclosed the exact chemical composition; preliminary tests employed a benzodiazepine derivative, with later adaptations aimed at improving efficacy and reducing abuse potential.

In 2018 Nutt's company GABALabs (previously called "Alcarelle") lodged patents branded as "Alcarelle," for several new compounds proposing to more closely mimic the desired "conviviality" of alcohol. As of October 2019, no research has been published regarding the efficacy, safety, or long-term health impacts of these compounds, nor have they been made publicly available to consumers.

In January 2021, the science team at GABA Labs released-to-market a plant-based functional alcohol alternative, under the brand "Sentia," and advertised as a "botanical spirit" reported to reproduce the relaxed and social effects typically associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Psychedelics

In collaboration with Amanda Feilding and the Beckley Foundation, Nutt is investigating the effects of psychedelics on cerebral blood flow.

Government positions

Nutt previously worked as an advisor to the Ministry of Defence, Department of Health, and the Home Office.

He served on the Committee on Safety of Medicines where he participated in an inquiry into the use of SSRI anti-depressants in 2003. The inquiry drew criticism for Nutt's participation, based on potential conflict-of-interest over his financial involvement in GlaxoSmithKline, which led to his withdrawal from discussions of the drug paroxetine. In January 2008 he was appointed as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), having previously served as Chair of the Technical Committee of the ACMD for seven years.

"Equasy"

As ACMD chairman, government ministers have repeatedly clashed with Nutt over conflicting opinions regarding drug harm and drug classification. In January 2009, Nutt published an editorial in the Journal of Psychopharmacology ("Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms") in which the risks associated with horse riding (1 serious adverse event every ~350 exposures) were compared to those of taking ecstasy (1 serious adverse event every ~10,000 exposures).

The word equasy is a portmanteau of ecstasy and equestrianism (based on Latin equus, 'horse'). Nutt told The Daily Telegraph that his intention was "to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life". In 2012, he explained to the UK Home Affairs Committee that he chose riding as the "pseudo-drug" in his comparison after being consulted by a patient with irreversible brain damage caused by a fall from a horse. He discovered that riding was "considerably more dangerous than [he] had thought ... popular but dangerous" and "something ... that young people do".

Equasy has been frequently referred to in later discussions of drug harmfulness and drug policies.

The issue of the mismatch between lawmakers' classification of recreational drugs, in particular that of cannabis, and scientific measures of their harmfulness surfaced again in October 2009, after the publication of a pamphlet containing a lecture Nutt had given to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London in July 2009. In this, Nutt repeated his view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause, and presented an analysis in which nine 'parameters of harm' (grouped as 'physical harm', 'dependence', and 'social harms') revealed that alcohol or tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy or cannabis. In this ranking, alcohol came fifth behind heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone, and tobacco ranked ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, he said. In this classification, alcohol and tobacco appeared as Class B drugs, and cannabis was placed at the top of Class C. Nutt also argued that taking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness, and that "the obscenity of hunting down low-level cannabis users to protect them is beyond absurd". Nutt objected to the recent re-upgrading (after 5 years) of cannabis from a Class C drug back to a Class B drug (and thus again on a par with amphetamines), considering it politically motivated rather than scientifically justified. In October 2009 Nutt had a public disagreement with psychiatrist Robin Murray in the pages of The Guardian about the dangers of cannabis in triggering psychosis.

Dismissal

Following the release of this pamphlet, Nutt was dismissed from his ACMD position by the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson. Explaining his dismissal of Nutt, Johnson wrote in a letter to The Guardian that "[Nutt] was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy. [...] As for his comments about horse riding being more dangerous than ecstasy, which you quote with such reverence, it is of course a political rather than a scientific point." Responding in The Times, Professor Nutt said: "I gave a lecture on the assessment of drug harms and how these relate to the legislation controlling drugs. According to Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, some contents of this lecture meant I had crossed the line from science to policy and so he sacked me. I do not know which comments were beyond the line or, indeed, where the line was [...]". He maintains that "the ACMD was supposed to give advice on policy".

In the wake of Nutt's dismissal, Dr Les King, a part-time advisor to the Department of Health, and the senior chemist on the ACMD, resigned from the body. His resignation was soon followed by that of Marion Walker, Clinical Director of Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's substance misuse service, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's representative on the ACMD.

The Guardian revealed that Alan Johnson ordered what was described as a 'snap review' of the 40-strong ACMD in October 2009. This, it was said, would assess whether the body is "discharging the functions" that it was set up to deliver and decide if it still represented value for money for the public. The review was to be conducted by David Omand. Within hours of that announcement, an article was published online by The Times arguing that Nutt's controversial lecture actually conformed to government guidelines throughout. This issue was further publicised a week later when Liberal Democrat science spokesman Dr Evan Harris, MP, attacked the Home Secretary for apparently having misled Parliament and the country in his original statement about Nutt's dismissal.

John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government stated that he agreed with the views of Professor Nutt on cannabis. When asked if he agreed whether cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, he replied: "I think the scientific evidence is absolutely clear cut. I would agree with it." A few days later, it was revealed that a leaked email from the government's Science Minister Lord Drayson was quoted as saying Mr Johnson's decision to dismiss Nutt without consulting him was a "big mistake" that left him "pretty appalled".

On 4 November, the BBC reported that Nutt had financial backing to create a new independent drug research body if the ACMD was disbanded or proved incapable of functioning. This new body, the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (later renamed DrugScience), was launched in January 2010 (later on to establish, in 2013, the journal Drug Science, Policy and Law). On 10 November 2009, after a meeting between ACMD and Alan Johnson, three other scientists tendered their resignations, Dr Simon Campbell, a chemist, psychologist Dr John Marsden and scientific consultant Ian Ragan.

In an 11 November 2009 editorial in The Lancet, Nutt explicitly attributed his dismissal to a conflict between government and science, and reiterated that "I have repeatedly stated [cannabis] is not safe, but that the idea that you can reduce use through raising the classification in the Misuse of Drugs Act from class C to class B—where it had previously been placed, but thus now increasing the maximum penalty for possession for personal use to 5 years in prison—is implausible." In a rejoinder, William Cullerne Bown of Research Fortnight pointed out that the framing of science vs. government was misleading because the weighting of the factors in Nutt's 2007 Lancet paper was arbitrary, and consequently that there was no scientific answer to ranking drugs. In reply, Nutt admitted the limitations of the original study, and wrote that ACMD was in the process of devising a multicriteria decision-making approach when he was dismissed. Nutt reiterated that "The repeated claims by Gordon Brown's government that it had scientific evidence that trumped that of the ACMD and the acknowledgment that it was only interested in scientific evidence that supported its political aims was a cynical misuse of scientific evidence that breached the principles of the 1971 Act and was insulting to Council." Nutt announced that he and number of colleagues that had resigned from the ACMD had set up an Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs.

A subsequent review of policy drafted by Lord Drayson essentially reaffirmed that the scientific advisers to the government can be dismissed under similar circumstances: "Government and its scientific advisers should not act to undermine mutual trust." This clause was kept despite protest from Sense about Science, Campaign for Science and Engineering, and Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris; according to Lord Drayson, the clause was requested by John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government. Leslie Iversen was announced as the successor of Nutt as the chair of the ACMD in January 2010.

Honours

David Nutt is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Academy of Medical Sciences. He holds visiting professorships in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. He is a past president of the British Association of Psychopharmacology and of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2002. He was the recipient of the 2013 John Maddox Prize for promoting sound science and evidence on a matter of public interest, whilst facing difficulty or hostility in doing so. He is past president of the British Neuroscience Association and past president of the European Brain Council.

His book Drugs Without the Hot Air (UIT press) won the Salon London Transmission Prize in 2014.

The University of Bath awarded Nutt with an honorary doctorate of laws in December 2019.

Personal life

David Nutt lives in Bristol, with his wife Diana. He has four children.

Nutt is a Patron of My Death My Decision, an organisation which seeks a more compassionate approach to dying in the UK, including the legal right to a medically assisted death, if that is a person's persistent wish.