High Peak Liberal Democrats

Chris Huhne: Ignoring drug experts sets a dangerous precedent

Chris Huhne - Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary

THE Home Secretary will come to regret his dismissal of Professor David Nutt, the distinguished academic who chaired the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

At a stroke, Alan Johnson - the West Hull and Hessle MP - has plunged the Home Office, once again, into controversy over its misuse of facts and figures and its inability to base policy on evidence.

Mr Johnson has also stirred a hornet's nest in the scientific community who object strongly to one of their number being sacked for daring to marshal scientific evidence.

This has deeply worrying implications for Government policy in a whole range of areas, from nuclear safety through to childhood vaccination and mad cow disease.

If the Government does not respect scientific independence, it is going to lose a priceless source of serious advice.

The essential framework of our law on dangerous drugs dates from 1971, when the Misuse of Drugs Act introduced categories A, B and C for different types of drugs and graded the penalties for possession and sale accordingly.

At present, possessing a class A drug like heroin can lead to seven years in prison, whereas class C carries a maximum sentence of two years.

The 1971 act also set up the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, composed of experts drawn from disciplines such as psychiatry and pharmacology best able to assess the evidence of harm. Every government since 1978 has accepted their recommendations about the evidence, including downgrading cannabis to class C in 2004.

That ended when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, and reportedly told his Home Secretary to upgrade cannabis contrary to the council's advice.

At the same time, the Government ignored the recommendation to downgrade ecstasy from class A to class B. Suddenly, the framework of drugs policy had become controversial.

I take a simple view of these matters. I am an economist by background. Alan Johnson was a postman. Chris Grayling, the Conservative shadow, was a journalist and businessman. None of us has any scientific background, which is precisely why it is sensible to take the advice and recommendations of people who are better able than us to assess the impact and harm of different drugs.

Politicians should know their limits: that is why we delegate so many detailed decisions, like those over drug classification, to expert groups and committees (including now such hitherto highly sensitive decisions as the right level of interest rates, set by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England).

If we politicise those essential technical decisions, we will see a gradual drift of policy away from hard evidence and towards pure prejudice.

That is why, when the Government first began to ignore the Advisory Council, I argued with my tongue in my cheek that it should save public money by disbanding it and appointing instead a committee of tabloid newspaper editors, who clearly had more influence over policy.

I had no idea how serious the problem would become.

If the Government continues to ignore expert advice in this way, the contagion will spread through government with devastating long-term consequences.

What if Sir Winston Churchill had ignored the advice of Professor Lindemann, later ennobled as Lord Cherwell and our wartime Prime Minister's trusted adviser on key scientific matters such as gas, bombing and nuclear fission? We would probably have lost the war.

Let me be clear what I am arguing. I do not believe that scientists always get things right, or even that they always know what they are talking about.

But I am convinced that on matters such as the harm caused by different drugs, they are far better able to sift and assess the evidence than any politician. I am also convinced that policy should be based on evidence, not hunch.

Alan Johnson, of course, argues that Professor Nutt went beyond his advisory role to campaign for policy changes. I am astonished at the charge, since Professor Nutt's views were contained in an article in a peer-reviewed learned journal. Are ministers really saying that anyone who advises the Government must now suspend publication of academic studies that disagree with its existing policy? This is appalling and disgraceful.

We know from history what happens when societies begin to ignore scientific evidence and rational argument. That way lies the Spanish inquisition, the point at which Spain began to decline as a great European power.

Open debate and the scientific method - discarding theories shown not to fit the facts - are the building blocks of successful modern societies. We abandon academic freedom at our collective peril.

•Chris Huhne MP is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary.