UK - Now Home Office drugs adviser wants to downgrade LSD from A to B

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The news has emerged after the Professor David Nutt was ordered to apologise by the Home Secretary for saying that taking ecstasy was no worse than riding a horse.

Prof Nutt is chairman of the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is set to recommend that ecstasy should be downgraded from A to B.

In a radio interview last year, months before he became chairman of the council, Prof Nutt disclosed that he also favoured downgrading LSD from A to B.

He said: "There are several drugs that are in class A and probably should not be there, like ecstasy and LSD. There are other drugs that should be up the scale.

"Ecstasy and LSD which tend to cause little dependence and relatively moderate degrees of personal damage are probably too highly classified."

LSD is ranked as a class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The maximum penalty for supplying the drug is life imprisonment.

Prof Nutt, who took over as chairman of the council last November, went on to call for a major overhaul of the drugs classification rules in Britain.

He said: "I think it is time to have a complete review of all the drug laws. And I would like to have that in the UK."

Prof Nutt said he was content that drugs like "heroin, crack, cocaine and metamphetamine pure" should remain as Class A drugs.

He told Radio New Zealand: "It is quite hard to move drugs out of classes. In the UK we have has these class system now since 1971.

"Only one drug has ever been moved down a class and a couple have moved up. Cannabis moved down and opiates moved up."

Prof Nutt said that if alcohol emerged as a substance in modern Britain it would be classified as an illegal Class B drug.

He said: "If alcohol was suddenly to emerge in society now and it was suddenly assessed as other drugs of abuse it would be rated as a B class drug and therefore not be made legal."

The Daily Telegraph disclosed last week how Prof Nutt had written in an academic journal that taking the drug was no more dangerous than an addiction to horse riding.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Jacqui Smith told MPs that his comments sent the wrong message to young people about the dangers of drugs.

She said: "I made clear to Prof Nutt that I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him as the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs."

By Christopher Hope
Last Updated: 10:49PM GMT 10 Feb 2009
Telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...om-A-to-B.html

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