The UK’s Home Secretary Jacqui Smith stands accused of “bullying” a senior government science advisor in a row over drug laws.

The row started when David Nutt, chairman of the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a researcher at Bristol University, wrote an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in which he attempted to put some perspective on the illegal drugs debate in the UK by detailing a “harmful addiction I have called equasy”. This turns out to be horse riding: Nutt is making the point that more people die from horse riding than from ecstasy use.

Smith was not impressed, saying “I made clear to Professor Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He apologised to me for his comments and I’ve asked him to, as well, apologise to the families of the victims of ecstasy.”

But opposition politician Evan Harris has hit back.

Harris says:

It is not on for a scientist to be called upon by the Home Secretary to publicly apologise for publishing his or her work in a peer-reviewed academic journal, especially when the individual is supposed to be independent of the Government.

In his article, Professor Nutt makes the point that it is impossible to have a proper rational discussion of the relative harm of taking drugs, as compared to legal activities, because of the hysterical way in which politicians and the media treat the issue. With her bullying tactics, the Home Secretary has proved him right.

Nutt told The Daily Telegraph last week. ““The point [of the article] was to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse riding and ecstasy.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is due to produce a report soon that may call for ecstasy to be downgraded from ‘Category A’ to the lesser ‘Category B’, meaning the government believes it to be less harmful and the penalties for possessing it are less severe.

Nutt has previously criticised the government for its upgrading of cannabis from the even lower Category C to Category B, against the advice of the council, so I’m sure Smith will read that report with an open mind when it hits her desk.

Sadly all these arguments are based on an utterly false premise: that the government considers scientific advice and not political expediency when making drugs policy.

Image: Corbis