The head of the UK government’s independent drug advice group looks set for another row with politicians who continue to ignore researchers’ advice over illegal substances.

Earlier this year the UK’s Home Secretary launched an attack on David Nutt, chairman of the government’s own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a respected academic.

Nutt’s crime, in the eyes of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and other politicians, was to write an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. His article called for a wider debate on the risks of drugs and, in passing, compared the risks of MDMA (‘ecstasy’) to horse riding. (See: Ecstasy advice is a bitter pill.)

Credit to the man though, he has stuck to his guns and come back with another reasoned critique, delivered as a lecture at King’s College London. In it he reiterates his call for improving public understanding of the actual risks of drugs and again recommends a more logical classification of these.

He also says the divide between illegal drugs and alcohol and tobacco is foolish.

“A fully scientifically-based Misuse of Drugs Act where drug classification accurately reflects harms would be a powerful educational tool,” he notes (pdf). “Using the Act in a political way to give messages other than those relating to relative harms undermines the Act and does great damage to the educational message. We also have to fully endorse harm reduction approaches at all levels and especially stop the artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as ‘non-drugs’.”

Predictably, his comments have again caused furious controversy, in the media at least.

A Home Office spokesman told AP, “Prof Nutt’s views are his own and do not reflect the views of Government. The Government is clear – we are determined to crack down on all illegal substances and minimise their harm to health and society as a whole.”

So there you have it, the view that the UK should have “a fully scientifically-based Misuse of Drugs Act” is apparently not one the UK government would share.