TRIGGERnometry - David Nutt - The Truth About Drugs

00:00:00.000 We've had this phrase obviously used in the last year in particular, which is following the science, right?

00:00:06.240 When it comes to other things. Have we been following the science on drugs?

00:00:10.800 No, we've been actively denying the science.

00:00:19.100 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:23.120 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:24.480 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:29.560 We have a brilliant guest for you today. He's a neuropsychopharmacologist and he was dismissed

00:00:35.240 from his role advising the government on drug policy back under the Blair government, I believe.

00:00:40.360 Dr. David Nutt, welcome to Trignometry. Good to be here, thank you.

00:00:43.440 Did we get your introduction right? You did, it was the Brown government.

00:00:46.620 It was the Brown government, even worse. So it's good to have you on. Listen, we started the show

00:00:52.340 three years ago and you were literally one of the names at the very top of our list. We didn't

00:00:56.720 manage to make it happen until now so you can tell I'm very excited to have you on the show

00:01:01.480 tell everybody before we get into it a little bit about who are you how are you where you are what

00:01:06.920 has been the journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us so I am a

00:01:13.200 doctor trained as a psychiatrist but as you said I am a neuropsychopharmacologist and that is

00:01:23.440 someone that studies the effects of pharmacology on the brain. Why do I do that? Because the brain

00:01:28.640 is a chemical organ. Your brain communicates, all the neurons in your brain communicate with each

00:01:33.560 other by chemicals, 80 different chemicals in the brain. And in order to understand the brain,

00:01:38.720 you have to understand the chemicals. And to understand the chemicals, you have to use drugs

00:01:41.960 to manipulate them. So as part of my work and my research, I think I've achieved something

00:01:48.540 it's rather special I think I have administered more different kinds of drugs to human beings

00:01:54.080 in anyone alive pretty much every class of drug that has ever been given to someone to change the

00:01:59.680 brain I've given and so I know quite a lot about drugs in the brain and that's why the government

00:02:03.300 20 years ago asked me to join them to advise them on drug policy because I was an expert on drugs

00:02:09.000 but after 10 years of doing research on the harms of drugs I came to the conclusion which wasn't

00:02:16.320 surprising i suppose that current drug policy and the current drug laws weren't based on evidence

00:02:21.360 and then i started saying that publicly and they didn't like that so they sacked me

00:02:25.720 that is so funny but look what a lot of people don't know the the the actual scientific evidence

00:02:33.700 i suppose there'll be things i don't lots of us don't know can you talk to us about

00:02:38.560 which drugs are actually harmful including the legal and illegal ones and which drugs are less

00:02:44.580 harmful another so we can kind of get a picture of if everything was allowed to be taken which

00:02:50.800 drugs would be doing the most damage and which would be the safest sure well we did a very very

00:02:56.580 systematic analysis there are 16 ways in which drugs can harm you well there are nine harms to

00:03:01.560 the user and they range from killing you as soon as you take it like fentanyl or you know making

00:03:06.540 you go slightly crazy perhaps like uh like a psychedelic uh and then there are seven harms to

00:03:12.320 society so if you if all drugs were legal and they were equally used the most dangerous drugs

00:03:18.140 which would harm the most number of people would be drugs like heroin fentanyl crack cocaine crystal

00:03:23.940 meth but then quite soon after you'd come to alcohol alcohol is about the fifth or sixth most

00:03:29.160 harmful drug to the user and the thing i got really angry with about with the government was

00:03:33.720 that the drugs which are relatively less harmful drugs like ecstasy like lsd like magic mushrooms

00:03:39.200 they're the ones that attract the highest penalties even though they're much less harmful

00:03:43.380 than drugs like even alcohol you say that I'm I'm going to ask you this question and I've wanted to

00:03:50.400 ask it to you for a very long time so when I started in comedy I was a fan of Bill Hicks

00:03:54.920 the comedian and when he used to have this routine about have you ever noticed it's the drugs that do

00:04:01.040 the least for you that are legal the ones that get you to question to push back to think for

00:04:06.200 yourselves are made illegal do you agree with that totally he's a genius he was a genius absolutely

00:04:11.060 completely on track the drugs that make you question this the establishment question your

00:04:16.960 governments drugs like psychedelics they were banned lsd was banned because people were questioning

00:04:23.140 the war in vietnam and because at that time as is still the case today the only response of western

00:04:29.800 governments to drugs is to ban them they got banned it didn't affect people using them but it

00:04:34.680 absolutely hammered people like me who want to research them and want to use them as therapies

00:04:38.520 and why is it that we just can't have a very simple rational discussion about this

00:04:43.820 without it invoking people you know people getting very angry upset you know blanket

00:04:48.940 bans which have been proven time and time again not to work yeah that's a really interesting

00:04:53.680 question why can't we have a rational discussion it's it's because i think now it's been so long

00:04:59.520 that we've been lying about the harms of drugs that people even people who kind of know

00:05:06.060 intellectually that they are these the relative harms of lie you know the the drugs that are

00:05:11.780 banned because of lies they even the people that know the truth kind of feel uncomfortable about

00:05:17.680 telling the truth and i think obviously a lot of people do believe the lies and they do believe

00:05:21.400 that drugs like lsd are more harmful than alcohol which is of course completely wrong

00:05:25.200 And we've had this phrase obviously used in the last year in particular,

00:05:30.400 which is following the science, right, when it comes to other things.

00:05:34.400 Have we been following the science on drugs?

00:05:37.380 No, we've been actively denying the science.

00:05:40.120 And we've been denying the science.

00:05:42.240 Do you know where it all started?

00:05:44.880 It started in 1914 with the Opium Act.

00:05:49.660 The Opium Act was brought in kind of at the behest of pharmaceutical companies.

00:05:55.200 who didn't want people using plant products.

00:05:57.220 They didn't like people smoking opium.

00:05:58.560 They wanted people to use the pure extract of opium,

00:06:02.180 which is called morphine, which they had patented.

00:06:04.360 And in fact, they patented other extracts like codeine and heroin.

00:06:07.920 So there was an antipathy to using plant products then.

00:06:11.200 It was a sort of gaining control of the markets by big pharma,

00:06:15.140 particularly those German pharma companies.

00:06:17.880 But in order to get opium banned,

00:06:21.180 you couldn't just ban it because it was competing with pharma.

00:06:23.580 what they had to do was create the fear of opium and that was very easy you just created a fear of

00:06:29.100 Chinese you know and in London was you know the east end of London where we are now you know this

00:06:32.840 was you know basically Chinese people living here were smoking opium and they would create you know

00:06:38.720 hysteria was created about them being evil people and they were corrupting them you know particularly

00:06:43.240 young women getting them smoking opium and so that the fear you know that this it was generated

00:06:49.280 around Chinese people smoking opium,

00:06:51.200 both in here and in the States,

00:06:52.760 to get opium banned.

00:06:53.980 That was the beginning of it.

00:06:55.300 And then it rolled on.

00:06:56.320 Then the biggest sea change

00:06:58.620 came with the prohibition of America,

00:07:01.300 of alcohol in America.

00:07:02.700 And that was driven by very puritanical individuals,

00:07:06.660 you know, lobby groups.

00:07:08.200 And they were concerned,

00:07:09.300 quite understandably concerned,

00:07:10.720 about the damage that alcohol was doing to families.

00:07:14.160 So rather than have a rational policy to alcohol,

00:07:16.980 which would be through taxation and limiting access,

00:07:19.280 they banned it. And it wasn't just America, Sweden, Norway, Finland also banned alcohol.

00:07:24.020 We nearly did in this country. People don't realise in, I think it was in the 1923 election,

00:07:29.900 Winston Churchill stood in Dundee against the temperance candidate. And the temperance

00:07:35.220 candidate beat Churchill by, I think, about 15,000 votes. So there's a huge international

00:07:40.300 pressure to ban alcohol. Anyway, the Americans succumbed, alcohol got banned. What happened?

00:07:44.040 or hell let loose organized crime rose because people like alcohol and people weren't ready to

00:07:49.780 give it up just to protect but possibly protect you know the families that were being damaged

00:07:54.120 anyway what's that got to do with modern drugs well what happened was in 1932 i think or 33

00:07:59.640 the prohibition act got repealed but at that point because prohibition was so corrupting of the

00:08:06.840 every policeman in america was on the take from speakeasies because every street corner had a

00:08:12.300 speakeasy you're underground you get your booze so the police were all corrupt so the American

00:08:16.500 government created a special army which we now call the Drug Enforcement Agency to fight the

00:08:21.500 mafia and just try to stop people using alcohol and that ended up being about 35,000 people

00:08:26.980 run by a man called Harry Anslinger and suddenly one day he knew that alcohol was going to be

00:08:33.360 legal so he couldn't be fighting alcohol anymore he'd lose his job and all his men would lose his

00:08:38.180 job so what did he do he created a new monster which was cannabis and he changed the name from

00:08:44.240 cannabis to marijuana because it's Mexican and then he started the classic process that all

00:08:49.480 governments do when they want to ban a drug they associate it with some other group in this case

00:08:55.040 the Mexicans and then the same stories the stories we had about the Chinese corrupting

00:08:58.640 white people became the Mexicans were corrupting white people and the Mexicans were coming into

00:09:03.940 america and selling cannabis and young men were going crazy and they were killing their mothers

00:09:09.020 etc so he created a hysteria about cannabis but worse than that he persuaded the rest of the world

00:09:15.920 to be hysterical about cannabis and in 1934 the league of nations which america wasn't even part

00:09:21.580 of banned cannabis effectively worldwide and that really started the whole chain you know chain

00:09:27.880 reaction of just keep banning any drug you don't like until we've got to the 1968 war on drugs with

00:09:33.160 Nixon, where, you know, he just went right over the top in order to get elected.

00:09:38.080 And we're talking about it now, but it does seem that we're starting to have a more balanced

00:09:44.420 approach, starting. For example, New York have, I think they've legalised cannabis,

00:09:49.580 have they not? Do you think that's part of a wider trend, David, that we're seeing now?

00:09:54.940 Yeah, well, the debates happened. I think, to be honest, my sacking made a contribution

00:09:58.740 in this country to the debate, because people said, well, why has it been sacked? And they

00:10:02.840 because he's saying that alcohol is more harmful than LSD

00:10:06.860 and that cannabis should be legal

00:10:09.380 because it's less harmful than alcohol.

00:10:11.180 And people start to say, really?

00:10:12.320 Oh, but he's a scientist.

00:10:13.620 Oh, maybe he's right.

00:10:16.960 You know, we had the ex-postman,

00:10:19.140 the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson,

00:10:20.900 sacking me, saying I was wrong on the harms of cannabis.

00:10:24.400 I mean, who are you going to believe?

00:10:26.280 You know, you're going to believe at least me

00:10:27.420 because I have done some research, you know,

00:10:29.320 and I do have a sort of integrity

00:10:31.220 and I do have some knowledge.

00:10:32.840 David, why do people take drugs?

00:10:35.720 Well, everyone takes drugs.

00:10:37.300 So that's the...

00:10:38.480 Including the people who make the laws against them.

00:10:41.160 Right, let's be clear about this.

00:10:43.100 So the first thing to say is that taking drugs

00:10:46.560 is one of the core features of humanity.

00:10:48.560 What defines us as different from other primates?

00:10:51.920 Well, we have language, we have art, and we take drugs.

00:10:56.240 Those are the three things.

00:10:57.580 We seek out drugs. Why do we do that?

00:10:59.380 Because we have a hell of a big brain

00:11:00.600 and we understand that there's a lot of capacity in the brain

00:11:03.360 which is underutilised.

00:11:04.780 So humans have always sought out drugs

00:11:06.680 and generally it's for pleasure or to reduce pain.

00:11:11.200 So 98% of the world's population take drugs.

00:11:14.760 I mean, mostly they take drugs like tea or coffee.

00:11:17.340 Coffee, you know.

00:11:18.200 You're having one now.

00:11:18.980 Yeah, I'm having one now, that's right.

00:11:20.360 Naughty boy.

00:11:20.920 80% of adults drink alcohol.

00:11:24.660 It used to be 60-70% of people smoke tobacco,

00:11:27.520 now it's a lot less.

00:11:28.120 people take drugs to relax them to take away some of the stress of life and in some cases to

00:11:35.520 actually expand their understanding of life and that's where drugs like psychedelics and maybe

00:11:40.280 mdma come in and we've always taken these drugs and it just seems bizarre that we live in a society

00:11:48.900 which has banned them because yes magic mushrooms were banned when i think it was 2005 correct and

00:11:53.960 And what was the government's, what was their justification for banning it?

00:11:57.740 Do you want to know the story there?

00:11:58.780 Yeah.

00:11:59.000 So David Cameron had come in to become the leader of the Tory party.

00:12:06.820 And he said before he became leader that one of his ambitions

00:12:11.200 was to reduce the classification of MDMA, which is a Class A drug.

00:12:15.260 It's a Class A Schedule 1 drug.

00:12:16.860 In fact, MDMA at that time in 2000, 2004,

00:12:19.700 or people were getting longer prison sentences for MDMA than for heroin or crack.

00:12:26.320 Wow.

00:12:26.940 Why is that?

00:12:27.840 Because judges hate people having fun.

00:12:31.840 Seriously.

00:12:33.220 They don't admit that, of course, but that just happens.

00:12:35.440 That's the only rational explanation.

00:12:37.980 Okay, so Cameron said, I'm going to reduce MDMA from class A to class B.

00:12:41.780 I think largely because he was associated with a lot of people that were taking it.

00:12:45.120 You know, his wife was quite a raver.

00:12:46.780 She went to raise, you know, it was a popular drug.

00:12:48.880 It was a drug which was changing particularly people's attitude to the police.

00:12:53.560 The police would go to a rave, and for the first time in their life,

00:12:56.140 they'd be hugged.

00:12:57.300 When they went to a pub, they got beaten up.

00:12:59.000 Anyway, so there was a strong move that MDMA was going to be more openly available.

00:13:06.820 Cameron became the head of the Tory party the next day.

00:13:09.780 I mean, I monitored this, obviously, because I was a government advisor at the time.

00:13:12.660 I monitored it.

00:13:13.260 One day, you know, I'm going to review the drug laws.

00:13:17.180 The next day, you know, I thought about it.

00:13:19.120 I've decided MDMA is a really dangerous drug.

00:13:21.420 The drug laws, you know, we're going to stick with the current classification.

00:13:24.900 Overnight, he switched.

00:13:26.260 Then what did he do?

00:13:28.120 People started selling in Camden Market.

00:13:32.460 A couple of shops started, hedge shops started selling dried mushrooms.

00:13:35.400 The technology for freeze-drying magic mushrooms came along.

00:13:38.840 The Daily Mail did not like that.

00:13:41.040 The Daily Mail has always had hysteria against drugs.

00:13:43.400 and they goaded Cameron to do something about these two shops selling magic mushrooms.

00:13:49.240 So Cameron then goaded Blair and said, look, you know, you're soft on drugs. We've got a drug here

00:13:53.140 because the active ingredient of magic mushrooms is psilocybin, which is illegal if it was pure,

00:13:58.600 but the mushrooms were legal in this country. And Blair, because he was like many left-wing-ish

00:14:05.520 governments, more liberal governments, are terrified of being seen as soft on drugs.

00:14:10.020 i mean the classic example of course is clinton in america clinton brought in the most restrictive

00:14:15.720 regulations he's the guy that brought in the third strike and you're in prison forever yeah

00:14:20.220 because he was told he had to be harder than the republicans otherwise he wouldn't get elected

00:14:25.800 the same here blair's decided he had to be harder on drugs in cameron and instead of coming to the

00:14:30.540 expert group i.e the acmd which i was a part of instead of asking us for advice which he should

00:14:35.800 done by law he set up his own committee we don't know well I mean it's alleged because of course

00:14:40.920 it was none of this documented but this was a classic Blair the kitchen cabinet you know the

00:14:45.140 I think they call it the sofa cabinet he got in he got in the police he got in he got in the army

00:14:51.560 and they sat around and they decided what are they going to do about magic mushrooms I mean

00:14:55.640 it's kind of completely bizarre and and we as the experts and the government's formal advisors heard

00:15:00.900 that they were having these meetings and we said to them you cannot change the law of magic

00:15:05.220 mushrooms without consulting the acmd because that is what the law says the mischief of drugs act

00:15:10.000 says you cannot change the law without consulting the experts and they went quiet for a couple of

00:15:16.260 weeks and and then we got a note saying they were going to have a vote in in in the commons next

00:15:21.540 week on rescheduling uh and reclassifying magic mushrooms and we and they said what do you think

00:15:26.640 and we said that's an insult you've kind of you've reached the law and you can't put us on that spot

00:15:31.280 We can't give us three days, effectively, to make a proper harm assessment

00:15:34.480 because it takes us a few months to do that.

00:15:36.380 And so they went ahead without us.

00:15:37.480 And then they voted to ban magic mushrooms and make magic mushrooms a class A drug.

00:15:43.500 And that was actually the beginning of the end for me.

00:15:46.460 Because you're sitting here saying, magic mushrooms,

00:15:48.980 a million people are using them each year in Britain and no harm.

00:15:53.000 And then suddenly they're alongside crack cocaine.

00:15:55.400 What kind of lawmaking is that?

00:15:57.660 And at that point I began to rebel and start saying,

00:16:00.740 you know come on guys you know this you can't have decisions just made by by essentially by

00:16:06.580 the prime minister and a couple of coronies and we're talking about magic mushrooms you've been

00:16:11.140 heavily involved in the field of psychedelics yes do you think that this is the next phase

00:16:16.340 for medicine you know as a way to treat things like anxiety depression etc etc absolutely i mean

00:16:22.820 it's like in the 1950s and 60s particularly lsd was being heralded as a revolution it was the

00:16:29.440 really the first medicine we had for the mind and it was being widely used so there were a thousand

00:16:35.940 research papers published in the 1950s and 60s on lsd showing powerful effective treatments for

00:16:41.480 everything from anxiety depression addiction and then he got banned he got banned because of the

00:16:47.020 vietnam war because you know people thought the anti-war protest would go away if it's banned lsd

00:16:51.680 i mean it is the you know it is a classic adage isn't it you know if you're a hammer everything's

00:16:58.380 a nail you know if you're a drug policy person everything's a ban anyway so that ban had destroyed

00:17:04.620 research it's the worst censorship of research in the history of world of all research because

00:17:09.640 i think 227 countries in the world signed up to that ban in no country in the world

00:17:15.660 has lsd subsequently been studied as a treatment except a tiny study in switzerland where it was

00:17:22.020 invented and when you look back at the evidence and you know the fact the lsd treatment for

00:17:28.060 alcoholism is the most powerful treatment it's twice as powerful as the best modern treatment

00:17:33.380 and yet you can't use it because it's illegal and that's why I started and my team you know

00:17:39.060 10-15 years ago and I started fighting back because it it makes no sense it's not as if

00:17:43.860 the ban has stopped use all it's done is stop research and clinical clinical attempts and so

00:17:49.400 I'm going to wear a tinfoil hat and I'm going to ask you a tinfoil hat question and feel free to

00:17:53.720 pushback do you think part of the reason that we have been so wary with this particular aspect

00:18:02.720 with things like psychedelics and treating mental health is because of big pharma who've got their

00:18:08.380 own particular treatments and don't want them to be encroached upon yeah there's several answers

00:18:13.520 to that question it's more it's not simple that they i think it's possible i don't have any

00:18:19.120 evidence but it's possible in the 90 towards the end of the 1950s other treatments for psychiatry

00:18:24.140 were coming along non-psychedelic treatments and i think one of the justifications that governments

00:18:29.340 used to get rid of lsd was well we got the alternatives yeah we've got antidepressants

00:18:33.900 uh so i think i think i don't think pharma was trying to get rid of lsd but but i think maybe

00:18:39.060 they were i don't know we don't we haven't got any data on that but certainly governments could

00:18:42.880 say well we don't need it because we've got alternatives and that's essentially when you

00:18:47.340 put a drug in schedule one which they did in this country in the UN conventions that says that you

00:18:53.040 don't need it because it's very dangerous and because there are alternatives now more recently

00:18:57.280 I don't I actually think that in a strange way I think the pharmaceutical industry is pleased

00:19:01.860 with what we're doing because they have given up on developing brain treatments as one of the

00:19:08.040 vice presidents of GSK said 10 years ago he said any drug company that works in on the brain needs

00:19:14.020 their head red because it's too difficult and that's so that most of them have now well in fact

00:19:19.360 almost no drug companies work on new treatments of the brain they almost all work in cancer and

00:19:24.020 heart disease and really is that really true yeah that's incredible i mean we bang on about mental

00:19:29.400 health more than ever and rightly so you could argue certainly for some people the treatment is

00:19:34.340 needed but they're not they're not looking to to deal with that market they're not looking to find

00:19:38.720 solutions for they think it's too difficult really and so i think they're quite grateful that we're

00:19:42.060 finding the solutions but the problem is the solutions are still illegal and until we change

00:19:45.820 the law we can't roll it out to the millions of people who need it and so you were saying about

00:19:50.320 you know and push back if i'm wrong that this is that the psychedelics are more effective

00:19:56.840 than the synthetics and the antidepressants can you explain to us why and yes because they work

00:20:02.440 in a very different way and this is really the the nub of my research i mean just just to be

00:20:07.680 just explaining a little bit more when i started researching psychedelics because it was the last

00:20:11.820 class of drug I hadn't studied I studied everything else stimulants opiates you know you name it I've

00:20:17.260 given it to humans but we hadn't done psychedelics why because it was just too difficult and they

00:20:21.160 were illegal and then I thought well you know I'm 60 now if we don't start soon I won't ever get it

00:20:25.500 done so we started and then we found these weird things you know we found that you know although

00:20:29.480 they open up your mind they actually switch off your brain so the brain goes brain activity goes

00:20:35.100 down as your mind expands and and in fact what's remarkable about that because that's exactly what

00:20:40.540 Ardus actually predicted. In 1953, when he took mescaline, he wrote about it in The Doors of

00:20:45.820 Perception. He said, my mind has been expanded by this drug. What does that mean? Oh, it means that

00:20:52.240 something's constraining my mind. What's constraining my mind? It must be my brain. And he came up with

00:20:57.720 this wonderful phrase, the brain is an instrument for focusing the mind. And we showed exactly that

00:21:03.280 because when we switch the brain off, the mind expands. So that was the first thing that, you

00:21:07.960 know we completely turned everything on our head we no one expected that these drugs would switch

00:21:11.800 off the brain except tuxley because he was dead but then we showed that it switches off the parts

00:21:17.280 of the brain which drive conditions like anxiety and depression so then we thought well maybe they'll

00:21:21.980 maybe it'll work in these conditions and then that and then i started reading what people knew about

00:21:27.020 them in the 50s and 60s and i realized what it was obvious you know but we had the brain science now

00:21:31.340 we could actually go to ethics committees and say we can switch off the part of the brain that

00:21:35.000 cause depression can we do a study and they said well it took us two years to get permission but

00:21:40.440 in the end we got permission and it was it was psilocybin is the most powerful treatment a single

00:21:47.240 dose of psilocybin can lift depression in the vast majority of people with severe depression

00:21:52.800 people who've been untreatable for 20 years can get better a day after a trip really and by a by

00:21:59.240 better what what do you mean david well some are cured some of the people we treated in the night

00:22:02.840 We started doing the study in 19, sorry, 2013.

00:22:06.860 And some, about 20% of the people in that first trial

00:22:09.060 are still well now.

00:22:11.720 Most have not, most have relapsed

00:22:13.100 because depression is,

00:22:14.540 from people who've had depression for decades,

00:22:16.820 often many people start having depression in childhood

00:22:18.800 because they get abused.

00:22:20.400 Their brain becomes set in a depressed mode.

00:22:23.520 And we can suppress that, but it kind of creeps back.

00:22:26.760 So, but it is still the most powerful treatment,

00:22:30.680 single treatment of depression has ever been shown.

00:22:33.420 David, let me ask you, Francis normally is the one wearing the tinfoil hat,

00:22:37.300 but I'll put one on for this purpose as well.

00:22:39.180 He mentioned Bill Hicks and this idea that the drugs we are allowed to take

00:22:43.080 are a certain type of drug.

00:22:44.640 And if you look at them, you know, tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, whatever,

00:22:48.120 these tend to be drugs that facilitate us being in the world as it is.

00:22:53.680 Being obedient workers, going into the factory, going into the office,

00:22:58.220 sitting there, taking another shot of coffee to be able to stay at the computer.

00:23:02.100 whereas as you say drugs that can be blamed for opening people's minds getting them to question

00:23:08.040 authority reject whatever they're being told that they're supposed to support invasions of

00:23:12.840 other countries whatever they are the ones that tend to be illegal is that a connection you see

00:23:18.560 as relevant or is that just a totally totally yeah politicians are absolutely terrified of

00:23:23.860 mind-opening drugs because it changes the way people vote that you know that was kind of the

00:23:29.100 basis of the war on drugs, Nixon's war on drugs, they, you know, they were really determined to try

00:23:34.920 to portray people, the anti-war people, as crazy drug users. They wanted to frame rebellion and

00:23:43.020 protest with drug use. And they succeeded. And we bought into that. You know, basically,

00:23:49.460 our Misuse of Drugs Act in 20, sorry, in 1971, was essentially written by the Americans.

00:23:56.240 I mean, basically, they told us, you write this.

00:23:59.860 Basically, your drugs act has got to mirror ours.

00:24:01.680 Otherwise, whatever, I don't know.

00:24:02.940 We're not going to put nuclear submarines in somewhere.

00:24:05.480 Anyway, we had up to that point kind of resisted

00:24:09.540 doing exactly what they told us.

00:24:11.120 But by then, in 1971, we gave up.

00:24:14.120 So there's two other things I want to focus on.

00:24:18.060 Because we're having a very positive conversation about drugs,

00:24:22.120 which some people may feel gives not enough attention to the negatives.

00:24:28.940 So let's talk about addiction and the fears that people have

00:24:36.000 about legalising or decriminalising drugs, the impact of that.

00:24:40.960 Because as you said yourself, there's 16 ways that drugs can harm people,

00:24:44.600 including society in general.

00:24:46.460 So if we were to decriminalise or legalise drugs, or most drugs,

00:24:50.460 Would that not have a huge negative impact in terms of, you know, people just getting addicted, being stuck in negative cycles, whatever?

00:25:00.460 Well, that's exactly what the politicians say.

00:25:03.080 Yeah.

00:25:03.260 That is the fear that politicians can spout all the time.

00:25:07.700 If we change the law, it will expand use and expand harms.

00:25:12.700 And there are multiple arguments against that.

00:25:16.240 Well, better than arguments, there's loads of evidence against that.

00:25:19.100 So the first thing is that the law doesn't work. So we have illegal cannabis in this country, you know, recreational cannabis is illegal. Yet we have a greater proportion of young people using cannabis than they have in countries where it's legal. Why is that? Well, and that's kind of been well known since the 1950s, really. Illegal markets create demand. And they create demand by getting people to use drugs and then selling drugs.

00:25:46.500 So once you criminalise people for drug use, they don't have much option.

00:25:50.700 As we've got a million young people, a lot of them black and minority ethnic,

00:25:56.800 with criminal records for cannabis possession.

00:25:58.840 They can't get jobs in the police or teaching or the civil service.

00:26:03.820 It's even quite difficult to get into the army with a criminal record for cannabis.

00:26:07.020 So we've got a million people.

00:26:08.160 What do you do then if you can't work in conventional work?

00:26:11.580 You deal drugs.

00:26:13.280 And perhaps the worst example of that was heroin.

00:26:16.980 So in 1971, and this is one of the really terrible examples

00:26:23.500 of what America forced us to do,

00:26:24.800 we were prescribing heroin to heroin addicts until 1971

00:26:27.580 because we knew that if we didn't,

00:26:31.060 they would go to the black market and get it.

00:26:32.880 But the Americans hated us for that,

00:26:34.200 and they effectively said, you've got to stop doing that.

00:26:36.840 So we stopped doing that.

00:26:38.680 Now, you take a heroin addict who's getting a prescription

00:26:40.840 from the doctor on a regular basis

00:26:42.760 and you say, sorry, you can't have your heroin anymore.

00:26:45.540 What do they do?

00:26:46.000 They don't say, oh, well, that's all right.

00:26:47.220 I'll go and run a marathon or something.

00:26:52.680 They say, I got four hours.

00:26:56.460 I got four hours to get my next hit.

00:26:58.940 And who do you go to to get heroin in four hours?

00:27:03.360 Well, you go to the black market.

00:27:04.480 You go to the criminals.

00:27:05.080 And where do you get the money for it?

00:27:06.520 That's the other part of it.

00:27:07.480 Well, that's right.

00:27:08.240 So then you, yeah, you can get your drug.

00:27:10.000 someone will give you the heroin and then they say yeah they want 100 quid you know back in those

00:27:14.120 days back in 97 was a lot of money and then how do you get the money well you either steal from

00:27:18.220 your parents or your you know your partners or you prostitute yourself or then you become a drug

00:27:24.380 dealer and that's what happened the majority of heroin users from 70 to 80 to 90 became heroin

00:27:31.420 dealers in order to pay for their habits so we went from a thousand addicts to 300 000 addicts

00:27:37.000 in 20 years.

00:27:37.980 Wow.

00:27:38.820 And we documented that.

00:27:39.880 There was an amazing case.

00:27:41.060 One heroin addict went to Crawley

00:27:42.880 down in Sussex.

00:27:45.840 I've been to Crawley.

00:27:46.660 You shouldn't go to Crawley.

00:27:48.260 And they've traced it.

00:27:49.480 They've showed that one.

00:27:49.960 I think this person had bigger problems.

00:27:52.240 That one person created,

00:27:54.740 I think, about 25 other heroin addicts

00:27:57.260 in Crawley.

00:27:57.900 It was like an infection.

00:28:00.060 They monitored how he grew

00:28:01.100 and they gradually grew and grew

00:28:02.400 and each one has to then get other addicts.

00:28:04.660 So it's like a Ponzi scheme.

00:28:06.040 Now, we knew this.

00:28:07.000 Nobel-winning, prize-winning economists have said this is what happens.

00:28:11.600 We've known this forever, but people don't, governments don't want to believe it

00:28:15.860 because it confronts their moral sensitivities about being rational about drugs.

00:28:21.440 And then just to finally answer your question completely,

00:28:23.440 there's brilliant evidence, it's called Portugal.

00:28:26.720 So Portugal decriminalised personal possession of all drugs about 17 years ago now.

00:28:32.420 Why?

00:28:32.780 because it was pursuing the policies

00:28:35.980 that we follow and the other countries follow

00:28:40.500 was bankrupting them.

00:28:42.880 So they decriminalized.

00:28:44.240 But what's happened to their drug use?

00:28:46.300 We've now got data on 15 years

00:28:48.180 of decriminalization in Portugal.

00:28:50.520 Heroin deaths have fallen

00:28:51.680 to a third of what they were before.

00:28:54.160 Over the same time in Britain,

00:28:56.240 heroin deaths have risen

00:28:57.280 to two thirds of what they were before.

00:28:59.580 Every year in Britain,

00:29:00.560 we get a record number of heroin deaths.

00:29:02.780 because we don't treat them in Portugal someone gets arrested for possessing a heroin they don't

00:29:08.560 get put in prison they get treated and that means they stop creating other addicts and they can be

00:29:15.920 they stop dying because they get treatment so the Portuguese experiment has absolutely shown us

00:29:21.580 how you can have a rational policy that works and saves huge amounts of money because they

00:29:26.780 empty their prisons. In Britain, we have doubled our prison population in the last 30 years. And

00:29:33.560 all of that is drug related crime. And the Dutch and the Portuguese with more sensible drug laws

00:29:40.380 have actually managed to reduce their prison population. This is what I wish people would

00:29:43.620 understand. We talk about all sorts of issues on the show, whether that's, you know, racial

00:29:48.720 inequality, the policing, racism, immigration in America, all of these things that are driving the

00:29:55.040 political landscape in very powerful ways. Actually, I mean, how many of the people coming

00:29:59.160 through the southern border from Latin America are escaping drug cartel-operated countries?

00:30:06.340 How many people are in prison because they're there, because of, you know, things that shouldn't

00:30:12.380 be illegal, in my opinion, you know? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, when you create a narco state,

00:30:17.300 which is what Mexico is, to some extent, you know, even some of the West African countries

00:30:22.020 now, Guinea-Bissaua, you actually completely destabilize the state, you destabilize the

00:30:27.920 economy, you make it, you essentially create, you know, the state is run by drug dealers

00:30:32.520 and they're generally not very good people and they're generally not that concerned about

00:30:36.080 the welfare of the population overall.

00:30:38.820 So, you know, we've created that monster, particularly in South America and Latin America,

00:30:43.480 which is actually fueling this enormous, you know, desire to get out of there and get somewhere

00:30:48.100 that's actually less oppressive and horrible.

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00:32:29.620 David, to you, what is a good drug policy?

00:32:34.240 If you were in charge of the drug policy now, what laws and changes would you implement?

00:32:38.120 so if i was running everything yeah i would um i would actually have a i would decriminalize

00:32:46.600 personal possession of all drugs so that people go into treatment rather than prison because i

00:32:52.360 mean putting people in prison for drugs is just stupid because they actually end up taking more

00:32:55.500 drugs in prison when you say treatment just to interject briefly tell people a little bit about

00:33:01.360 what you mean by that well if you are addicted to a drug if you're if you're caught in possession

00:33:07.080 of a drug and you're because you're addicted to it then i would say you're mentally ill because

00:33:11.240 that's what an addiction is so you should be treated as someone who is ill rather than someone

00:33:17.200 who is bad but putting drug addicted people into prison is both extremely wasteful of money because

00:33:24.400 it costs a lot of money to put people in prison and it just perpetuates the cycle because they

00:33:28.560 don't get treated in prison i mean drug use in prison is greater than outside of prison

00:33:33.240 for various reasons, not least of which prison's a horrible place

00:33:36.500 and drugs can't help people deal with the misery.

00:33:39.600 And also, you know, a significant proportion of prison officers

00:33:43.140 are now drug dealers because it's a lucrative trade.

00:33:45.300 So criminalising people for drug use is always counterproductive.

00:33:49.860 Right. So you arrest people.

00:33:51.200 If you find people with drugs in their possession,

00:33:53.600 you decriminalise that, they get treatment,

00:33:55.480 and that's a combination of, like, psychological and medical

00:33:58.420 and whatever.

00:33:59.020 Whatever they need.

00:33:59.820 Right. Okay. And then?

00:34:01.960 Now, if they're not addicted,

00:34:04.200 then this is the weakness of the decriminalization approach.

00:34:07.680 Well, in Portugal, what they do is they have civil sanctions.

00:34:10.500 They basically say, okay, well, you've got to clean the streets

00:34:12.400 for a couple of weeks.

00:34:13.480 So you don't get a criminal record,

00:34:15.020 and you mustn't give people criminal records.

00:34:17.320 But they pay some kind of penalty.

00:34:18.880 They call it dissuasion.

00:34:21.560 Now, my own personal view is I would go further than that.

00:34:24.940 My view is that if for drugs which are less harmful to the user

00:34:29.720 than alcohol then they should be available because i think for two reasons first is a moral reason

00:34:37.180 you know why would you want people to take a more harmful drug if they could take a less

00:34:41.640 harmful drug well the only reason for that is because the drinks industry want you to

00:34:45.800 and then the second reason is a pragmatic reason if people use less harmful drugs there's less harm

00:34:51.280 and this myth that people politicians are oh well they'll they'll be taking alcohol and they'll be

00:34:57.560 getting stoned on top and there'll be I mean that's just rubbish you know about a third of

00:35:01.620 people in Britain if cannabis was legal would reduce their drinking they'd switch to cannabis

00:35:06.000 I wouldn't have another drop of alcohol ever again personally so so there will be almost certainly

00:35:11.560 overall health benefits for making a mark but I'd have this I'd have these drugs available in what

00:35:17.200 we in what we call you know licensed premises like pharmacies you know where we get their drugs

00:35:21.440 And just reflect on the fact that until 1974, we used to just sell alcohol in licensed premises, which were called bars or off licenses.

00:35:31.080 And then one of the worst things that any government did, and this was John Major's government, was to allow supermarkets to sell booze.

00:35:37.860 And the massive increase in alcohol harm, which we've seen, has been driven by, I think it was about 94 that he opened up essentially the licensing laws.

00:35:47.920 and alcohol consumption effectively doubled

00:35:51.100 as a result of allowing people to buy it in supermarkets.

00:35:54.300 All the increase in alcohol consumption since the mid-90s

00:35:57.400 has been in supermarkets.

00:35:59.380 And that doubling of alcohol consumption

00:36:01.900 has led to a tripling of alcohol harms

00:36:03.780 because the relationship between alcohol consumption and harm

00:36:09.120 is not linear, it's actually curvilinear.

00:36:11.460 And so you decriminalise possession

00:36:14.020 and what do you do for people who are dealing drugs like crystal meth etc etc would you legalize

00:36:21.500 something like that or would you still make it illegal so i think drugs they're more harmful

00:36:25.480 than alcohol so i would keep that i would keep so the dealers would still be criminal in the same

00:36:30.760 way as people who are bringing in illegal alcohol are you know they're criminals well you know if

00:36:35.380 you've got if you've got a regulated market then you have to protect it so if if people are

00:36:40.060 deliberately flouting the law by bringing in drugs

00:36:42.440 which are more harmful than the ones people could buy,

00:36:45.200 then, yes, I think you have to criminalise them.

00:36:47.100 But the hope would be that their market would dwindle.

00:36:49.880 Because if you've got to...

00:36:50.460 Look, we've seen this.

00:36:51.860 Can any of you remember Methadrone, MCAT, Meow Meow?

00:36:55.280 Yeah, I remember, yeah, yeah.

00:36:56.240 Remember that, right?

00:36:57.180 So this was an amazing example of how rational drug use

00:37:01.960 or drug users are.

00:37:03.780 So in 2007, Methadrone began to come into Britain.

00:37:09.720 So it was a legal cathinone.

00:37:12.860 And it was actually pretty safe.

00:37:15.000 You could take a gram of methadrone and you wouldn't die.

00:37:17.640 Whereas if you took a gram of cocaine, there's a good chance you'll die.

00:37:20.320 And if you took a gram of MDMA, there really is good chance.

00:37:22.820 So people started to switch, particularly from cocaine and amphetamines to methadrone,

00:37:29.740 which is a kind of weak cocaine, really.

00:37:32.900 And cocaine deaths fell.

00:37:36.100 Year on year, cocaine deaths.

00:37:37.480 So the cocaine deaths halved, and amphetamine deaths reduced by about 40%.

00:37:43.140 When people had access to something, that was not killing them,

00:37:46.700 but not equally acceptable, but preferable because it was legal.

00:37:52.700 But what happened?

00:37:53.680 The government got hysterical.

00:37:54.980 Sorry, the sun got absolutely hysterical.

00:37:57.680 The sun determined it was going to ban methadrone.

00:38:00.360 And it set out to create scare stories about methadrone.

00:38:05.420 And it was the government, it was the 2010 election.

00:38:08.360 Brown was getting anxious about being seen as weak on drugs.

00:38:11.320 So they decided to ban methadrone just before the election.

00:38:15.480 And what happened?

00:38:17.680 Cocaine deaths then rose and rose and rose.

00:38:19.660 We now have the highest number of cocaine deaths we've ever had.

00:38:22.440 Methadrone deaths, there were never really any methadone deaths.

00:38:25.660 They stayed virtually zero.

00:38:27.880 So people are rational.

00:38:29.600 If you give them a safer legal alternative, they will use it, and that will save lives.

00:38:36.800 So that's the model on which I'm making the argument that we should have a regulated market for some drugs.

00:38:42.120 And where do you stand on cocaine, David?

00:38:44.100 Yeah, cocaine's a tricky one, actually.

00:38:45.800 And I'm interested in whether we could have a regulated market.

00:38:48.940 Now, the organisation called Transform has actually just written a paper

00:38:52.720 because they're trying to see if you can get a regulated cocaine market in Mexico

00:38:57.440 because that could dramatically undermine the power of the cartels.

00:39:04.080 So I think if Mexico go down that route,

00:39:06.520 we could monitor that and see how it goes.

00:39:09.200 I think cocaine is on the edge.

00:39:10.520 It's more harmful than alcohol,

00:39:12.880 but it's so much more harmful that there might be benefits

00:39:17.620 in having a regulated market in the sense you get rid of organised crime.

00:39:22.220 So I think that's the most difficult one at present.

00:39:25.100 David, let's talk about addiction a little bit

00:39:26.920 Because I think this is a very important part

00:39:29.280 because I think you talk about the political reluctance

00:39:32.640 to follow the science, to use the term.

00:39:37.520 And it's clear from what you're saying

00:39:39.740 that those political decisions are killing people.

00:39:43.600 But they are based, I think,

00:39:45.620 the politicians make their decisions

00:39:47.320 based on their perception of the public perception of drugs.

00:39:51.920 And the public's perception of drugs

00:39:53.680 may be at a sort of individual level,

00:39:55.460 well, I don't want my child, I don't want this, I don't want that.

00:39:59.940 And we do see people, and even with drugs that are not in and of themselves

00:40:04.700 massively harmful like heroin, but people have problems with alcohol,

00:40:09.860 people have problems with cannabis, people have problems with all sorts of drugs, right?

00:40:14.040 Why do people get addicted to drugs?

00:40:17.500 There are three main drivers to get addicted to drugs.

00:40:20.820 The first is the drug.

00:40:22.240 Some drugs are more addicted than others.

00:40:23.620 heroin cocaine are very addictive alcohol is pretty addictive tobacco is pretty addictive

00:40:28.900 and some drugs are not addictive mdma lsd other psychedelics they're not they're anti-addictive

00:40:35.440 they're not addictive so that's the first thing the drug varies the second thing is the nature

00:40:39.200 of the drug varies and the way you take it so if you're shooting up crack cocaine or smoking crack

00:40:46.480 cocaine you know you it gets in the brain so fast that it is more addictive than for instance if you

00:40:51.300 snort cocaine and that's one of the reasons actually we encourage people to smoke heroin

00:40:56.180 rather than inject heroin because again it's not just safer in terms of infection but it's also a

00:41:00.720 bit less addictive so the speed at which the drug gets in it has quite a huge impact on on

00:41:05.780 addictiveness and we can easily and we can use that to actually develop treatments but that's

00:41:09.600 another story and then the really the third thing is why are people using the drug so if you're

00:41:15.800 using the drug to dampen pain you know then you're less likely to get addicted if you're using the

00:41:22.260 drug to get high because getting high eventually for most drugs they're getting high the effect

00:41:26.380 the high gets less and less so people keep chasing the high if you're using say alcohol

00:41:30.620 though to deal with pain or misery in your life then you can get because you get tolerance to

00:41:34.540 alcohol then you've got to keep more and more so so it's you need to look carefully as to why people

00:41:39.600 are using drugs and if it's for self-medication that's generally not a good thing that is you

00:41:43.960 You know, you're vulnerable there.

00:41:45.320 And then the final point, and this is particularly relevant to cannabis.

00:41:48.580 Why do people get addicted to cannabis?

00:41:49.840 They didn't used to get addicted to cannabis very much

00:41:51.500 when I was an undergraduate and people were using cannabis.

00:41:54.480 There's much more addiction to cannabis now

00:41:56.020 because our policy has changed the cannabis market.

00:42:00.480 Back in the 70s and 80s, cannabis was resin or hash.

00:42:04.420 It was a mixture of a bit of THC, maybe five milligrams of THC in a spliff,

00:42:08.900 but also a substance called cannabidiol, which is a kind of antidote.

00:42:13.660 And a balanced mixture of traditional cannabis isn't very addictive.

00:42:18.040 But because we're hysterical about stopping the importation of, you know, Moroccan or Lebanese plants, you know, we've got homegrown cannabis.

00:42:28.100 And people then now are going hydroponically under permanent light.

00:42:32.660 And that grows strong THC without cannabidiol.

00:42:36.020 So 95% of the stuff you buy in Britain called cannabis is skunk and it's up to 15 to 20% THC.

00:42:43.660 which is more addictive because it's stronger than the old stuff,

00:42:47.800 but also hasn't got the protective element.

00:42:49.160 So our policies have driven, absolutely driven,

00:42:53.760 the rise in harms from cannabis.

00:42:56.340 But then it gets worse.

00:42:58.700 We're the only country in the world that has really got a big problem

00:43:02.820 with spice, synthetic cannabinoids, and we've caused that.

00:43:06.040 We have created the spice monster because we have tried

00:43:09.100 to stop prisoners using cannabis.

00:43:10.840 We've started testing prisoners for cannabis.

00:43:13.660 which hangs around in the body for weeks.

00:43:17.960 When we started testing back in the early 90s,

00:43:20.080 it was an experiment just to see what drugs prisoners were using.

00:43:23.980 I'm trying to know if prisoners were using a lot of cannabis.

00:43:27.360 They carried on testing.

00:43:30.020 And basically, if you tested positive for cannabis,

00:43:32.480 you lost your probation,

00:43:33.680 so you could stay in prison for two more years.

00:43:35.800 Now, prisoners are not stupid.

00:43:37.720 So they switched.

00:43:38.580 The first thing they switched to,

00:43:39.560 which is well documented in the government,

00:43:41.320 they switched to heroin,

00:43:41.940 because heroin disappears in a day so then we had a rise in heroin use in prisons because people

00:43:47.220 i mean isn't that the most ridiculous a policy which drives people from cannabis to heroin

00:43:53.000 you know you think hang on perhaps we should stop doing this perhaps we should stop testing no no

00:43:57.200 we just carry on rolling out testing because we want to stop people using heroin and then they

00:44:00.460 switched to ghb and gabapentins and then someone realized that you could actually have these

00:44:05.060 synthetic cannabinoids which aren't detectable and so now we have in prisons we've had 70 deaths

00:44:11.120 last year from synthetic cannabinoids these are extremely toxic compounds that prisoners are using

00:44:16.780 to avoid detection for using cannabis every prison in britain now has to have a special

00:44:21.880 platoon of big male paramedics to deal with the people who go crazy and who have heart attacks

00:44:28.080 and have fits from synthetic cannabinoids no other country in the world has this problem but

00:44:33.440 because we're so obsessed with punishing people even when they're in prison by testing them don't

00:44:38.780 testing and we've created this monster and can we put it back in the bottle you know when we've

00:44:42.800 seen it on the streets you know the streets of manchester a couple of years ago it's cheaper to

00:44:45.880 get stoned on synthetic cannabinoids than it is on alcohol so people switch and they're you know

00:44:51.000 they're so much more toxic it just seems that we seem that we're just making the same mistake

00:44:57.800 again and again totally and again are we ever going to actually wake up and deal with this

00:45:02.680 in a calm and rational manner?

00:45:04.420 Well, we did have a sense of it.

00:45:05.480 When the really sad thing,

00:45:08.260 there was an opportunity in the coalition

00:45:10.840 because the Lib Dems were very sympathetic

00:45:13.820 to a sensible policy.

00:45:15.260 In fact, the Lib Dems now have a policy of legal cannabis.

00:45:18.760 It's just that they don't have any,

00:45:21.040 you know, they can't even touch power anymore.

00:45:22.700 No.

00:45:23.940 But when in the coalition,

00:45:25.680 there was a Lib Dem minister for drugs, Norman Baker.

00:45:29.540 and he was very sensible, very rational.

00:45:32.740 In fact, he's on one of my upcoming podcasts

00:45:34.840 and he went around the world

00:45:36.880 and he got evidence of better policies around the world.

00:45:40.600 He was not allowed to...

00:45:42.660 He's a drugs minister.

00:45:43.540 He couldn't publish his own paper

00:45:44.960 because at the time the Home Secretary,

00:45:47.360 someone called Theresa May,

00:45:48.880 refused to let him publish his evidence

00:45:51.700 and Theresa May has been the biggest problem

00:45:54.840 because she is religiously anti-drugs,

00:45:58.660 except alcohol, of course.

00:46:00.160 I mean, it's completely absurd.

00:46:02.080 She brought in the Psychoactive Substances Act,

00:46:04.420 which is a completely stupid piece of legislation.

00:46:07.880 There was almost no harm from other psychoactive substances.

00:46:11.120 It was all hysteria driven by the media.

00:46:13.680 But also not just the media.

00:46:14.760 There are some quite powerful...

00:46:16.540 The Puritans, they got alcohol banned in America in 1923.

00:46:19.580 They're still there.

00:46:20.900 You know, there are still people that want to ban all drugs,

00:46:22.500 including alcohol.

00:46:23.180 And things like the Public Policy Exchange,

00:46:25.620 they're still pushing, pushing all the time

00:46:27.720 to ban things and and as i've said banning things almost always leads to the rise of more toxic

00:46:33.600 substances you know it's interesting because we we are you know we talk to people from all over

00:46:38.560 the political spectrum and one of the things that i always find uh kind of more troubling about some

00:46:45.060 of the excesses of the left is they tend not to think about things in a practical way but rather

00:46:49.160 in a very utopian way but this is an issue on which the right is completely mental when it comes

00:46:54.120 of this thing because their approach is very much that it's we can you know we can get people not to

00:46:59.820 ever use drugs again and just seems to be countered to the human experience well of course it is it's

00:47:04.460 stupid but i don't the left are no better really well blair and brown blair and brown these million

00:47:12.280 young people with criminal records that was driven by blair incentivizing the police making

00:47:17.960 making cannabis possession an offence that was part of the police target was the i mean the

00:47:26.040 police is the easiest crime in the world police would literally do this they start on a shift at

00:47:31.480 six o'clock in london they'd walk into a park stop a black guy filling his pockets find some cannabis

00:47:37.000 that's done i've met my criteria of arrest for the day off to the pub i mean it was absolutely

00:47:43.440 ridiculous and and that's one of the reasons we had the riots because hogan how decided he was

00:47:50.040 going to really impose this when he came into power i mean you know arresting young black people

00:47:54.640 for possessing cannabis by police who the black people know are using a more toxic drug called

00:47:59.960 alcohol is is not it's it's immoral it's racist the whole thing was just so corrupt and now you

00:48:08.300 know there's there's a group in the labor party that i've been lecturing to and talking with who

00:48:13.100 want reformed drug policy. But Keir Starmer, perhaps not surprisingly, given that he was a

00:48:18.300 man that locked up a lot of people for drug use, says, no, no, the Labour Party are terrified of

00:48:24.080 being seen as soft on drugs. So they won't change because they're scared. In fact, I think it's going

00:48:29.680 to be the Tories that are going to change sooner because the economic value, for instance, of

00:48:33.540 having a regulated cannabis market is enormous. It's going to bring billions of pounds into the

00:48:38.340 exchequer and and actually we've saw just recently and i spent a lot of time advising

00:48:44.360 norwegian experts norwegian government on drug policy and actually they funded some research by

00:48:50.380 us to to look at the right policies and and we they had a vote in norway just recently about

00:48:56.320 decriminalizing drug use who blocked it the socialists and i think the problem is this

00:49:02.800 there's still this sort of stalinistic view that you can control people you know and you can stop

00:49:07.760 people using drugs not alcohol but you can do some other drugs and it's so the left are just

00:49:14.020 as bad as the right i think that's really interesting on the politics of it the one thing

00:49:18.080 i think really pisses me off and it really does piss me off is look at our current prime minister

00:49:24.200 boris johnson he's admitted to using all sorts of illegal drugs and yet the people who are enforcing

00:49:29.780 and passing the laws against this stuff uh you know we had a whole wave of revelations from the

00:49:36.980 home secretary jackie smith i think uh all the way through to other members of front benches on both

00:49:41.880 sides of the house of commons admitting to taking drugs and yet these are the people who are passing

00:49:47.240 laws to criminalize other people for doing the thing they did and got away with yeah well of

00:49:54.040 course dishonest politicians it's not news anymore is it i mean you know i mean i think the public

00:49:59.400 think what do you expect yes that's all they do they just lie and lie i mean it's i just find it

00:50:04.120 I mean, it is absolutely disgusting, isn't it?

00:50:06.920 Absolutely.

00:50:09.280 Michael Gove can say, yes, if I was caught, I'd have gone to prison.

00:50:11.840 Well, he wouldn't have gone to prison because he's white and rich

00:50:13.700 and he's got good lawyers.

00:50:15.440 And that's the other thing.

00:50:16.380 Drug policy is so racist.

00:50:19.160 You've got, I think, five times more likelihood of being prosecuted

00:50:23.420 if you're black than if you're white.

00:50:25.180 But he should have been, if the law was applied to him

00:50:29.360 and he had been caught.

00:50:29.920 Everyone knew about his cocaine parties.

00:50:31.540 you know everyone knew about alleged cocaine sorry i don't think he denied it did he not i

00:50:40.240 don't think he ever denied it i think he admitted he'd taken any admitted you know he had misused

00:50:44.600 drugs in the past and he could i think he actually said he could have he could have gone to prison

00:50:48.300 maybe he said he should have done but the reality is it's it i don't he needs to be asked the

00:50:54.980 question why are you still opposing a rational policy maybe he'd say well maybe if cocaine was

00:51:00.680 legal i'd have taken more it's a bit hard to imagine how you could have done but you know i

00:51:05.100 mean it's i don't i don't know what they think i actually don't think they just lie they just know

00:51:09.700 that as long as the daily mail and the sun are kept happy they'll stay in power and that's all

00:51:13.880 they're just appeasing the newspaper editors who who for some reason have this well i don't know

00:51:19.820 i don't actually know if they care about drugs i think they just find drugs are a very easy way of

00:51:23.400 stirring up interest in the newspapers it's amazing isn't it how it's become this political

00:51:27.880 football and we talk about drugs and the legalization of drugs do you think gambling is a

00:51:33.580 drug no but gambling does make use of the same brain circuits that drugs do to get you addicted

00:51:42.360 so gambling is clearly addictive and we're using that fact to try to understand brain circuits of

00:51:49.820 addiction because what we've done a lot of work on alcoholism and on heroin and cocaine addiction

00:51:54.700 and people say yeah you can show me these circuits in the brain that are altered in these people

00:51:58.800 but how do you know that's not just due to the drug and we say well actually we can't be sure

00:52:03.560 it could just be that if you use drugs enough and we say well people who people who aren't

00:52:07.340 addicted to use drugs don't have the same changes but they say well yeah but maybe it's just these

00:52:11.100 people were vulnerable to start with but if you study gambling most most gamblers can't afford

00:52:17.020 drugs so so they don't use you know they're not dependent on drugs so then you can actually look

00:52:21.460 at the core processes which underpin addiction and that we hope that that will give us insights

00:52:26.280 into new treatments. That's what I was going to ask you actually because there are people with

00:52:31.060 alcohol it's a very well-known thing there are people who can drink alcohol and never become

00:52:35.320 addicted and there are people who just cannot drink alcohol without becoming alcoholics. Do we

00:52:41.980 have any idea on what the difference is between those two people two friends sitting next to each

00:52:47.180 other and they have completely different outcomes from the same pint yes we do we can't predict but

00:52:53.240 we can explain and there are several things we've discovered that predispose you to becoming an

00:52:58.360 alcoholic and the first one is having an alcoholic father so there's clearly genetics but we can go

00:53:04.540 further than that now and in fact we know that that vulnerability is in part due to brain chemistry

00:53:10.000 and it's kind of paradoxical but people who who are start off being resistant to alcohol

00:53:18.080 the people that can stay sober or stay stay standing after their first binge when all their

00:53:24.460 friends are on the floor they're often they've got alcoholic fathers and and so they're like

00:53:30.240 pre-tolerant now they're a super you know everyone thinks oh he's an amazing guy look how much you

00:53:34.800 can drink but the problem is they end up drinking more and become eventually become dependent

00:53:39.860 so that's the first thing and then the other thing is that um we've shown that there so there's the

00:53:46.100 people who drink all the time and who like drinking all the time and want to drink all the time because

00:53:50.180 they can but then there are the others and this is in some ways a more common group and we all know

00:53:53.920 them the people that that actually don't want to drink all the time but can't stop when they start

00:53:58.000 the binges and we've shown that the binges they have probably some deficit of the endorphin you

00:54:04.380 You know, the brain's endorphin system, the sort of natural high system.

00:54:08.820 It's a natural opiate system.

00:54:11.020 And we think what happens is that when they start,

00:54:13.580 they go to the pub absolutely, totally intended,

00:54:16.480 I'm going to have two pints and I'm going home to her wife.

00:54:19.560 And then after the second pint, the endorphin system has been turned on

00:54:23.160 and then they lose control.

00:54:25.800 And you know, we've all seen it.

00:54:27.000 And then, you know, it's 15 pints later and they're getting divorced.

00:54:30.620 So there are at least two separate chemical pathways

00:54:33.200 which control different forms of alcohol addiction.

00:54:35.820 What about abuse and trauma, which you mentioned earlier?

00:54:39.000 Johan Harry, who's written stuff about,

00:54:41.180 I don't know if you're familiar with his work or what you think about it.

00:54:43.400 Yes, I know Johan very well.

00:54:44.460 Oh, you do?

00:54:45.180 And his book on addiction is brilliant.

00:54:48.700 Well, that's his central thesis, isn't it?

00:54:50.600 That really people get addicted to drugs

00:54:52.960 because they're dealing with childhood trauma

00:54:56.120 and that has damaged the way that they experience the world

00:55:00.640 and they need something to help them deal with that.

00:55:03.200 Do you agree with that?

00:55:04.680 Absolutely.

00:55:05.400 And in fact, well, it's not just childhood trauma.

00:55:07.880 I mean, we know that veterans, you know,

00:55:10.500 come back from Afghanistan or Iraq, you know,

00:55:12.460 they've been traumatised.

00:55:15.400 They've got PTSD.

00:55:17.540 The vast majority of people with PTSD,

00:55:21.380 whether it's through war or through rape,

00:55:24.140 or even to some extent, less just car accidents,

00:55:27.520 people who cannot deal with PTSD turn to alcohol.

00:55:30.520 It doesn't cure the PTSD, it just numbs the pain.

00:55:33.860 And there's huge problems with alcohol in people with PTSD,

00:55:38.140 which is actually why we have just done a very interesting study.

00:55:40.960 So some of you may know that over the last 10 years,

00:55:45.460 there's been interest in using MDMA, the sort of pure ecstasy, to treat PTSD.

00:55:50.420 And it helps people essentially overcome the emotional memories of the trauma.

00:55:55.300 And a couple of years ago, me and my colleague Ben Susser in Bristol,

00:55:58.180 we thought, well, a lot of people who are drinking alcohol excessively

00:56:02.120 are doing to deaden their trauma.

00:56:04.740 So we did a study which we just published last month

00:56:06.900 on using MDMA, two sessions of MDMA,

00:56:09.840 the same as in the PTSD trials,

00:56:12.340 in people who are drinking because of stress.

00:56:15.020 And we had a phenomenal, you know,

00:56:16.980 80% of that group were able to stop drinking for six months,

00:56:22.280 which is unprecedented outcome

00:56:24.820 because our normal treatment, which is just talking therapy,

00:56:28.540 it's about 20% stay sober.

00:56:31.060 so this is really exciting that we can actually target the cause of the drinking the trauma

00:56:35.420 or the trauma memories and help people then not need to drink

00:56:38.440 wow that is i mean that's revolutionary well i think so too but the problem is of course mdma

00:56:46.260 is illegal so actually we can't treat people so we now you know we've got i think we have

00:56:50.780 we've got about a hundred emails at least of people saying can i go into treatment with you

00:56:56.220 and we say no because it's illegal and if we give it to you they'll lock me up and i'll tell you the

00:57:00.880 Daily Mail would love to lock me up.

00:57:03.180 So we have to change the law so that people can at least,

00:57:07.620 doctors can, I mean, isn't it bizarre?

00:57:09.780 Why would a doctor not be allowed to use a drug like MDMA

00:57:12.300 when he can use a drug like fentanyl, which is way more toxic?

00:57:14.780 That's incredible.

00:57:15.500 I mean, it's just the law is completely wrong

00:57:19.040 in terms of those drugs.

00:57:20.700 It's moronic.

00:57:21.580 It's like I have to get marijuana for my mum

00:57:24.520 because my mum has chronic osteoarthritis, is in pain.

00:57:27.880 But the synthetic drugs that she gets prescribed

00:57:30.840 are highly toxic you know they could you read it though the long-term use causes dementia

00:57:35.600 stomach problems can lead to you know ulcers cancers all that but i can't give her marijuana

00:57:40.680 to help her with her pain but you know we have drug science has been making progress here so

00:57:45.600 she can now get proper pharmaceutical grade medical marijuana through the drug science

00:57:52.220 2021 initiative yeah we've and she's got it at a good price because we've negotiated with about

00:57:58.640 five different producers to keep the prescription price down to 150 pounds a month so your mother

00:58:04.980 can log into the drug science website and get assessed for um medical marijuana for her

00:58:11.160 arthritic pain through 2021 really do try that is okay it'll it'll make life so much easier for

00:58:17.600 everyone you her but also you can absolutely guarantee what you're getting it's going to be

00:58:21.840 it's made to pharmaceutical standard well there's a happy ending turn into it david listen we've run

00:58:27.220 out of time uh we there's so much more we could talk about perhaps we'll do it another time uh

00:58:32.540 but thank you for coming on the show it's been a pleasure uh before first of all we're going to ask

00:58:37.640 you our last question then we'll do some questions for our local supporters uh but uh before we we do

00:58:43.460 go to our last question tell everybody a little bit about your podcast and the other stuff that

00:58:47.660 you were doing that they can check out and follow and where they can find you online etc

00:58:50.900 So when I was sacked by Alan Johnson and Gordon Brown in 2009, I was pretty angry and pretty upset.

00:59:02.660 The next day, a guy called Toby Jackson, who'd made some money developing computerized trading on the London Stock Exchange,

00:59:10.680 he emailed me and said, what they've done is outrageous.

00:59:13.240 If I gave you the same amount of money as the government spends on drug policy in the ACMD, would you set up a parallel organization?

00:59:20.900 i said sure would and and we set up in those days it was called the iscd independent scientific

00:59:27.540 committee on drugs now it's called drug science all the scientists who resigned from the acnd

00:59:33.740 when i was sacked have joined it so we so now we have the drug science is now the premier

00:59:38.020 scientific think tank on drugs in the world there's no you know absolutely no you know no

00:59:44.360 competitors at all and over the 10 years we've done a lot of interesting things like we've done

00:59:48.680 these detailed assessments of comparative harms of drugs we've set up a journal to publish sensible

00:59:54.440 data on on drugs and tell the truth about drugs and we've held conferences we've set up 2021 to

01:00:02.200 allow access we've now got a thousand thousands patient has gone into 2021 just last week so we've

01:00:07.740 got a facility in britain where people can access medical cannabis even though they can't get it on

01:00:13.100 the NHS and I've also set up a podcast and do listen to my podcast I think we've now got about

01:00:20.300 25 and there are very interesting people they range from from therapists like Gabor Mate who's

01:00:26.340 a sort of pioneer of childhood stress and the use of psychedelics to deal with adults with that

01:00:32.040 problem through to people like Rick Doblin who's developing MDMA he's campaigned for 25 years to

01:00:36.900 make mdma a medicine you know and then we've got some therapists and we've got scientists uh people

01:00:43.120 that have discovered interesting things about psychedelics and ketamine and cannabis etc so uh

01:00:48.100 yeah do listen what's the podcast called for people well it's just called the drug science

01:00:52.620 podcast and it's on our website the drug science.org.uk fantastic i mean that's and please please

01:01:00.460 to everyone watching go and give it a go and give it a follow go give it a listen because it's very

01:01:04.940 very important work and David the one question we always finish all our interviews with is always

01:01:10.120 the same it's what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society but we really should

01:01:14.620 be we should talk be talking about the lives lost over the last 50 years by this irrational

01:01:26.080 war on drugs 300 000 deaths in mexico alone but when you look at the other side of the coin

01:01:37.720 when you look at the lives lost because people haven't had access to treatments

01:01:43.480 it's way more than 300 000 so i've estimated just for alcoholism alone not heroin addiction

01:01:50.040 other addictions. In the 50 years since LSD and psilocybin were banned, there have been over

01:01:59.200 100 million premature deaths from alcohol. There have been actually about 300 million premature

01:02:11.920 deaths from tobacco. These are disorders which are treatable with psychedelics. And even if only

01:02:18.020 10% of those people who were addicted to alcohol and tobacco were cured by psychedelics. That would

01:02:25.560 be tens of millions of lives saved. And that's why I say the banning of these drugs for research

01:02:32.440 and treatment is the worst censorship of research and treatment in the history of the world.

01:02:37.680 More people have died as a result of those bans than as a result of any other health policy ever.

01:02:45.000 it's a very important point David

01:02:47.200 thank you so much for coming on the show

01:02:48.900 and thank you for watching at home

01:02:50.660 we'll be back with another brilliant interview like this one

01:02:53.200 or our show

01:02:54.140 all of them go out at 7pm UK time

01:02:56.340 take care and see you soon guys

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TRIGGERnometry - July 04, 2021

David Nutt - The Truth About Drugs

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