What's scarier: Drugs or drug policy?
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Room P/X/001, School of Physics, Engineering and Technology Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)
Event details
York Drug Science Student Society event
For half a century, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has dominated ill-judged approaches to UK drug control. Prohibition, criminalisation, blanket bans and blindness to scientific facts have distorted justice, prevented lifesaving research and thwarted calls for reform. While £6.9 billion is spent annually to enforce the 50-year-old drug laws, the number of drug users in the UK is growing, and the drug-related death rate is 4.5 times the EU average.
On the flip side, clinical researchers are amassing evidence for the revolutionary potential of psychedelics in mental healthcare, revealing improvements in disorders such as depression, anxiety and PTSD. The use of these psychoactive substances, however, is punishable with up to seven years of prison.
All things considered, should we worry about the drugs or the drug policy?
This talk is supported by the Public Lectures Fund.
About the speaker
Professor David Nutt is an English neuropsychopharmacologist, the chairman and founder of Drug Science - a non-profit organisation, providing independent, evidence-based information on drugs. Until 2009, he was a professor at the University of Bristol, heading the Psychopharmacology Unit. Presently, D.Nutt is the Edmond J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at the Imperial College London.
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