Professor David Nutt

by Jon White, New Scientist

David Nutt, former adviser to the UK government, says the ban on drugs like ecstasy is hampering neuroscience

How do the drug laws in most countries affect scientific research?

One of the things I find very disturbing about the current approach to drugs, which is simply prohibition without necessarily any full understanding of harms, is that we lose sight of the fact that these drugs may well give us insights into areas of science that need to be explored and may give us new opportunities for treatment.

In what way?

Almost all the drugs of interest in terms of understanding brain phenomena such as consciousness, perception, mood and psychosis are illegal. And so there is almost no work done in this field.

How bad is the impact? Read more »