Challenging the thinking on drugs

Pills Picture credit: Be.Futureproof

Alternative ways of dealing with drug- and alcohol-related harm will be spelled out in a public lecture at the University of Cambridge tomorrow.

David Nutt, Edmond J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, and formerly the government’s chief drugs adviser, will say that the regulation of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, is an issue of pressing importance due to the increasing healthcare costs associated with their use.

"I shall present new analyses that compare the harms of drugs and alcohol using more sophisticated methodology and challenge many of the current misconceptions about drugs, their harms and how to deal with them," Professor Nutt said.

Professor Nutt, who is also Director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Division of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College, London, worked for ten years on the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He is one of the country’s leading experts on the effects of drugs.

The talk, which starts at 7.30pm on Monday at the Wolfson Lecture Theatre in Churchill College, is the latest in a series of lectures organised by the Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (CSAR).

The CSAR aims to encourage discussion around the purpose and benefits of academic research, with particular focus on the dissemination of knowledge from scientists to the local community, industry and businesses.

Other speakers due to take part in the series are Professor David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, and Professor David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk.