Profiles of scientists and science policy makers are not easy – or at least it’s not easy to make them relevant, fair and yet engaging. But in a recent issue of Science, I found this opener hard to resist:
David Nutt is trying to develop a new recreational drug that he hopes will be taken up by millions of people around the world. No, the 62-year-old scientist isn’t “breaking bad.” In fact, he hopes to do good. His drug would be a substitute for alcohol, to create drinks that are just as intoxicating as beer or whiskey but less toxic. And it would come with an antidote to reverse its effects, allowing people to sober up instantly and drive home safely.
The story, headlined The Dangerous Professor, by Kai Kupferschmidt, stays fascinating to the end, detailing the quest of an Imperial College neuropsychopharmacologist to change public policy and societal attitudes toward recreational drugs. (Sorry, it’s behind a pay wall)
Every detail here is relevant – there are no strange tangents. A profile rarely explains a person’s whole life – it takes a slice of that life that intersects with some important trend or movement in society. Here it’s society’s attitude toward recreational drugs, both legal and illegal, and how our cultural prejudices intersect and sometimes conflict with the neuroscience of drug use. It feels particularly timely in light of recent acts to legalize marijuana.
The subject, David Nutt, argues that drug policies in the UK (and similar ones in the US) are based more on morality than health harm.
Drug policy is often based on the moral judgment that people should not use drugs, he says. Instead, it should reflect what science knows about the harms of different drugs—notably that many are far less harmful than legal substances such as alcohol, he says.
One reason this profile works so well is that the author interviewed so many people – supporters and detractors alike. Nutt’s enemies inevitably make fun of his name, and also compare his sought-after alcohol substitute to the fictional drug soma from Brave New World. As a reader, I can’t tell whether the author agrees or disagrees with the subject. He encapsulates Nutt's argument in a way that seems fair and reasonable, though it’s also no surprise that he’s meeting considerable resistance.
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