Do you agree that scientist's views should always be respected, or do you think that scientists must respect that their advice and public statements as government advisors must be in line with government views?
Well, the first obvious point is that a government that wants advisors to be 'in line with government views' clearly doesn't need advisors. It needs puppets.
The more sinister side of this is exactly what Professor Nutt said and how what he said was distorted and manipulated by those who wanted to silence a voice of reason or merely create a sensational story to boost their audience. The current debate isn't about what Prof Nutt was trying to communicate.
But the government sacked him for coming out against drugs
Not sure what this means, but Nutt has certainly come out against drugs in all of his recent articles that I found. That means that he thinks they should be controlled and people should be discouraged from using them irresponsibly. The overall point that Nutt is trying to make is that the government should be putting efforts into saving life and limb based upon rational, scientific evaluation of risk rather than some ill-defined, feel-good, guesses designed to earn votes and campaign contributions. In another article, (http://jop.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/20/3/315) he points out that ecstacy (and horseriding) pale into insignificance against the huge lethal and social cost of alcohol and criticizes the more liberal licensing laws and lack of any education related to alcohol consumption and its excesses. Probably the real reason that he was fired was because he didn't shy away from criticizing the lawmakers he is attempting to advise.
The full article written by Nutt on the horseriding comparison is at http://jop.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/20/3/315. It is a scholarly article in a scientific (psychological) journal considering the 'psychology' of attitudes towards drugs versus other potentially dangerous / lethal recreations. It is interesting to note that a majority of those (mis)reporting the article failed to provide a citation so readers / listeners could check the story themselves.
Nutt introduces his comparison by stating:
....the arguments about relative drug harms are occurring in an arcane manner, at times taking a quasi-religious character reminiscent of medieval debates about angels and the heads of pins!
The reasons for this are multiple and complex, but one major element is that the drug debate takes place without reference to other causes of harm in society, which tends to give drugs a different, more worrying, status. In this article, I share experience of another harmful addiction I have called equasy to illustrate an approach that might lead to a more rational and broad-based assessment of relative drug harms.
Nutt defined equasy as an addiction to horseriding which apparently causes over 11,000 head injuries per year in the US.
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