On Friday, I twittered about a recent report written by Prof. David Nutt, both an academic and Chairperson of the UK government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. In the report--published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London--Prof. Nutt argues that if UK drug policy is going to be 'evidence based', then UK drug laws need to reflect currently available scientific evidence. And he goes on to show how some drugs like cannabis are classified at a level disproportionate to their overall potential levels of harm. With no talk of decriminalization or legalization and no questioning of the ways in which harm is measured, this is pretty orthodox stuff.
Yet, since excerpts were published in the Guardian last Thursday, Prof. Nutt has been in the midst of a media maelstrom. Home Secretary Alan Johnson viewed the report as an attack on government policy and forced Prof. Nutt to step down. In response, two other members of the Advisory Council have resigned with speculation that a mass resignation of the remaining membership may take place in a week's time.
There is much that can be said about this case and much that is being said. That the advice offered to ministers by bureaucratic mandarins and/or academic experts is often only adopted piecemeal and/or ignored is a common political occurrence. And as frustrating as it may be, it is the prerogative of the government to set policy as it wishes within the boundaries of the law. You can speak 'truth' to power, but power doesn't necessarily have to listen. In response, that bureaucrats--often as unnamed sources--and experts might go public with their displeasure is nothing new either.
Similarly, that UK drug laws are counter-productive--despite the claim of adopting an evidence based approach to drug regulation--is not a novel insight. If anything, the Nutt affair just further confirms how the securitization of drugs has institutionalized a preference for treating their production, distribution, and consumption as a public safety--as opposed to public health--matter, regardless of the consequences.
What has been subject to less exploration are the implications of the Nutt affair on the UK's research culture. As I discussed in a previous post, the Research Excellence Framework, the next round of national research assessment, will place a significant emphasis on impact. Impact is defined as research that makes a contribution to formulating government policy, addressing the needs of business, and/or cultural well-being.
First, as many academics suspected, any pretense that it will be world-leading research that will have the most impact with the government can now be dropped. What this case exemplifies is that the research that is of most value to the government is that which is politically expedient. Anything that contradicts government policy will not be seen as valuable.
One wonders at what point will this begin to irredeemably pollute the research funding process by not only shuffling funding priorities to specific areas--which is already happening--but by determining the research questions that will be eligible for funding based on matching these to government preferences? Questions are important because they shape the kind of answers that researchers will attempt to discover. Moreover, the framing of questions (e.g., is there ample medical evidence to warrant the legal downgrading of cannabis to class C?) establishes which side(s) of an issue must meet a specific burden of proof in order to have their results accepted as irrefutable evidence.
Second, one wonders about the effects that the Nutt affair will have on the composition of governmental advisory boards? His report was an academic paper published by a research centre. If part of the price of being a member of governmental advisory boards is that one cannot publish research that may demonstrate shortcomings in government policy, what world-leading researchers are going to be prepared to compromise their integrity--or potentially sacrifice their publication records while serving--in this way? If world-class researchers decide that participation is no longer viable, who is going to come in to replace them? How good will their advice be really? And how much will their participation distort the results of REF?
Thus, it strikes me that that there is something far more fundamental at stake here. What do you think?
Photo credit: Allan Saw
