Professor David Nutt: Psychedelics, Depression & The War On Drugs
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Why is it so hard to stop using alcohol and other drugs?
Thanks for tuning in. Follow us to not miss out on next week's episode. If alcohol was a brand new drug, do you think it would
be legal? It would not be approved. The maximum recommended allowance per year is a large glass of wine. Alcohol is now the leading cause of death in men and women under the age of fifty. What kind of things are you treating with psychedelics? A million young people take mushrooms every year and none of them die. Maybe we could lift depression. It feels like the biggest breakthrough in mental health that I've
ever heard of. Quick disclaimer, this next part of the interview discusses psychedelics and the research behind it into mental health. If you're not ready for this yet, that's okay. It'll be here whenever you are. I think it's important to say that when we're talking about psychedelics, this is not people doing them in the house or at the park. This is in very structured settings or with therapists and in a scientific capacity. This is very different to exploring these things on your own, which can be very dangerous. Professor David Nutt, welcome to On the Mend.
Thank you very Thank you for inviting.
So I'm so pleased to have you on. I can't express, I've wanted you on for such a long time. The moment that maybe made you famous to me, right? Which was talking about how, first of all, I'm used to a bad headline, right? But I think I think you had a s quite a seriously bad
headline, right? Do you want to talk about
How you ended up leaving one of the biggest jobs in British science after speaking out. What happened?
Well, so uh we're talking about uh two thousand and nine. Yes. Uh October the twenty eighth, I think. It's funny how you remember those I can imagine
you
remember that day. It's on the Today programme. Talking about drug harms and uh And I made the mistake of um Pointing out that actually the drug laws weren't very evidence based. And they said, What do you mean? And I said, Well, for example, alcohol is actually much more harmful than many of the drugs which are illegal. For instance, LSD. Mm and the and the interviewer said You cannot be serious. I said, Well e I said everyone knows that. Everyone knows that alcohol way more harmful in most countries than psychedelics. And the world went mad. I mean, literally that day I spent the whole of the day doing interviews, radio, TV got on the front page of USA Today, the next day and my friends in the States were saying, Davy, what are you doing?
What are you doing? And I said, Well, I'm just telling people the truth But unfortunately the truth didn't accord with the um government's desire to um uh win the next election. The two thousand ten election was coming up. And uh within a a day I was sacked as the chief drugs advisor.
That is remarkable, right? So you spoke out of something which is a truth and it's a scientific fact, right? And you said that because first of all, you're the leading scientist on this fact. Yeah, I was the chair of the committee. You were the chair of the committee. You know, so and y and you said that. And so what does it mean but when when you say you got sacked? What is that what is that what does that mean?
Well, it w it went like this. Yes. Uh I got a an email from my um Secretariat. Sec so I because I was working for the home office, there was a group of people in the home office, uh that we're looking after the advisory council on the misuse of drugs group which I was the chair. And my secretary said uh The Home Secretary uh would like you to resign. Uh and I said, Well I'm not gonna resign for telling the truth. Yeah scientific truth. So I said, you know, we might disagree on what to do about the truths. We might you know, you might not want to Sa admit that alcohol is more harmful than other drugs. But I'm not gonna resign for telling the truth 'cause that's what scientists are supposed to do. And it ten minutes later the email came back, Well, you sacked.
Oh my god, mate.
I
mean I mean, that's so backwards, isn't it? Uh
it
was different, wasn't it?
Yeah, it's a very different is it might have
at least the Some Secretary, Alan Johnson, might have rung up and said, David, sorry, uh you know, I've got to let you go.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is it so hard to stop using alcohol and other drugs?
0:00–9:51
2
How does addiction change the brain and why isn’t willpower enough?
9:51–19:11
3
What happened when David Nutt was sacked for speaking the scientific truth?
19:11–28:44
4
Why is alcohol classified as a drug and how does its legal status affect public health?
28:44–37:23
5
What is Sentia and how could it replace alcohol with a safer alternative?
37:23–46:01
6
How do psychedelics work in the brain and what did early imaging studies reveal?
46:01–55:16
7
What therapeutic breakthroughs have psychedelics achieved for depression and other disorders?
55:16–1:04:21
8
Can addiction ever be fully overcome and what role do willpower and support play?
1:04:21–1:13:34
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from On The Mend
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