The lead Editorial in this week's Lancet focuses on the pressure put on the UK's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to ban the recreational drug mephedrone, despite the absence of a direct causal link between reported deaths and the drug.
The Editorial discusses the various resignations from ACMD, first in response to its former chairman David Nutt's sacking after comments he had made about ecstacy; and secondly in response to the rushed decision to classify mephedrone as a class B drug after political and media pressure. The Editorial says: "Furthermore, the ACMD report, Consideration of the cathinones, which recommended the ban, documented the very scanty evidence on mephedrone, including the absence of a direct causal link between the reported deaths and the drug. Alarmingly, the report, which was only a draft, was still being discussed by the ACMD when Iverson rushed out of the meeting to brief Home Secretary Alan Johnson of their recommendation in time for a press briefing."
Also highlighted in the Editorial is the very quiet release—on the same Day as the mephedrone report— of the ACMD's other report, Pathways to Problems—a detailed progress report on recommendations made in 2006 on hazardous drug use. The report contains some potentially unpalatable conclusions on tackling young people's problems, including not enough being done on alcohol and tobacco, as well as calling for a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Yet this report received no media attention or a response from the Home Office. Instead, it conveniently got buried under discussions on the legal status of mephedrone.
The Editorial says: "There was little time to consider carefully the scientific evidence on mephedrone. The ACMD did not have sufficient evidence to judge the harms caused by this drug class. It is too easy and potentially counterproductive to ban each new substance that comes along rather than seek to understand more about young people's motivations and how we can influence them. We should try to support healthy behaviours rather than simply punish people who breach our society's norms. Making the drug illegal will also deter crucial research on this drug and other drug-related behaviour, and it will be far more difficult for people with problems to get help."
The Editorial concludes that, despite the Labour government's strong record of supporting UK science,' the events surrounding the ACMD signal a disappointing finale to the government's relationship with science'. It says: "Politics has been allowed to contaminate scientific processes and the advice that underpins policy. The outcome of an independent enquiry into the practices of the ACMD, commissioned by the Home Office in October, 2009, is now urgently awaited. Lessons from this debacle need to be learned by a new incoming government."
See also World Report on the UK ban.
The Lancet Press Office T) +44 (0) 20 7424 4949 E) pressoffice@lancet.com
For full Editorial, see: http://press.thelancet.com/editorials1704.pdf
See also World Report on the UK ban: http://press.thelancet.com/wr1704.pdf
Journal
The Lancet