David Nutt

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David Nutt

David John Nutt (born April 16, 1951 ) is a British psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist and known for his scientific, but drug- politically controversial statements on the physical and psychological risks of drugs .

Life

David Nutt attended Bristol Grammar School and studied at Downing College of the University of Cambridge , after which he completed his medical training at Guy's Hospital in London to eventually develop in neurology. After completing his psychiatric training in Oxford, he lectured there and was later appointed Senior Fellow in Psychiatry. He then served two years as director of clinical science at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda , Maryland . From 1978 Nutt dealt intensively with drugs and their influence on the human body, taking an unbiased look at illegal substances and prescription drugs alike, in order to prove that illegal substances can also serve medical purposes.

After returning to England in 1988, he set up a psychopharmacological department at the University of Bristol, an interdisciplinary research group consisting of the departments of psychiatry and pharmacology. In 2007, he published a scientific report which resulted in the UK government ousting him because the study results led him to conclude that cannabis , LSD and ecstasy were less harmful to the body than alcohol and tobacco, both on an individual basis as well as on a societal level.

In December 2008 he was appointed to Imperial College in London, where he set up a similar group with a special focus on PET scanning brain imaging . Currently (end of 2015) he is Chairman of DrugScience, a formally independent scientific committee for pharmaceuticals, and President of the European Brain Council. Previously he was President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) and the British Association of Psychopharmacology (BAP). He is also a member of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Psychiatrists and a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, as well as a member of the International Center for the Science of Drug Policy.

David Nutt has published more than 400 original papers, eight government reports on drugs and 27 books. He previously chaired the Advisory Committee on Drug Abuse from 1998 to 2009. He is particularly concerned with therapeutic and illegal drugs, the damage they cause and their criminal classification.

Nutts' classifications of psychotropic substances

Comparison of the harm caused by various psychoactive drugs, based on a survey of medical psychiatrists who specialize in addiction treatment.
Potential harm of common drugs (follow-up study)

General positions

David Nutt calls for education instead of criminalization with regard to psychotropic substances , as he is of the opinion, based on scientific studies, that all psychotropic substances are harmful, but not equally harmful, which is why every responsible citizen should have the opportunity to make informed decisions about their consumption .

He is also convinced that the criminalization of drug users usually causes more damage than the drugs themselves do. On the other hand, even if you extrapolate the use of illegal drugs, there is a clear discrepancy between alcohol , tobacco and illegal drugs in terms of harm, since smoking is extremely addicting and kills five million people worldwide annually, alcohol at least 2, 5 million, while illegal drugs claim 200,000 victims.

Position on cannabis

After his studies, David Nutt comes to the conclusion that smoking cannabis only represents a "relatively small risk" for psychotic illnesses caused by cannabis.

Furthermore, David Nutt considers cannabis prohibition to be irrational, because even if he believes an - as yet unproven - connection between cannabis use and schizophrenia is possible, he is convinced that science by no means justifies the level of fear of cannabis propagated by the media .

Position on mushrooms containing psilocybin

David Nutt believes that psilocybin and psilocin could prove useful for people with resistant depression as it shuts down the part of the brain that is overactive when they are depressed.

Position on LSD

Together with a working group, Nutt came to the conclusion that the self- harm potential of LSD compared to other psychotropic substances should be regarded as rather low, while the external harm potential of LSD is not present at all. The results of the studies were published in 2007 and 2010 in the journal The Lancet . A follow-up study with similar results appeared in the Journal of psychopharmacology in 2015 .

Nutt thinks that based on experiments carried out in the 1950s and 1960s, LSD should be regarded as helpful in the treatment of many medical conditions, especially the treatment of alcoholism. He considers the fact that it was declared illegal in 1967 to be an absurd degree of censorship, since, due to the severe restrictions also for clinical studies, LSD has only been the subject of one clinical study in Switzerland and two other neuroscientific studies since then.

Position on MDMA

In a scientific journal, Nutt wrote that taking ecstasy (MDMA) was no worse than the risks of "equasy", a term he used to describe the addiction to riding ( equine addiction syndrome ). He identified the 10 deaths and 100 road accidents associated with perfectly legal riding annually, compared with the 30 MDMA deaths in the UK each year .

Works

Books

  • with M. Sarter and RG Lister: Benzodiazepine Receptor Inverse Agonists. Wiley-Liss, Hoboken 1995, ISBN 0-471-56173-8 .
  • with WB Mendelson: Hypnotics and Anxiolytics. In: Baillière's Clinical Psychiatry. Ed. Byres, C. Baillière's Tindall, London 1995.
  • with CJ Bell and J. Potokar: Depression, Anxiety and mixed Conditions. Martin Dunitz Publishers, London 1997.
  • with JC Ballenger and JP Lépine: Panic disorder: clinical diagnosis and treatment. Martin Dunitz Publishers, London 1998.
  • with S. Argyropoulos and S. Forshall: Generalized anxiety disorder: diagnosis, treatment and its relationship to other anxiety disorders. Martin Dunitz Publishers, London 1998.
  • with R. Shiloh and A. Weizman: Atlas of Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy. Martin Dunitz Publishers, London 1999, ISBN 1-85317-630-3 .
  • with M. Briley: Milestones in Drug Therapy: Anxiolytics. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2000, ISBN 3-7643-6032-1 .
  • with J. Davidson and J. Zohar: Post traumatic stress disorder: diagnosis, management and treatment. Martin Dunitz Publishers, London 2000, ISBN 1-85317-926-4 .
  • with SE Hood and SV Argyropoulos: Clinician's manual on anxiety disorder and comorbid depression. Science Press, London 2000, ISBN 1-85873-397-9 .
  • with EJL Griez, C. Faravelli and J. Zohar: Anxiety disorders: an introduction to clinical management and research. John Wiley & Sons, Sussex 2001, ISBN 0-471-97873-6 .
  • with C. Bell, C. Masterson, and C. Short: Mood and anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Martin Dunitz, London 2001, ISBN 1-85317-924-8 .
  • with A. Feeney and S. Argyropoulos: Anxiety disorders comorbid with depression: panic disorder and agoraphobia. Martin Dunitz Limited, London 2002, ISBN 1-84184-049-1 .
  • with K. Rickels and J. Davidson: Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Symptomatology, Pathogenesis and Management. Martin Dunitz Limited, London 2002, ISBN 1-84184-131-5 .
  • with JC Ballenger: Anxiety disorders. Blackwell Science, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-632-05938-9 .
  • with SH Kennedy, RW Lam and ME Thase: Treating depression effectively: applying clinical guidelines. Martin Dunitz Limited, London 2004, ISBN 1-84184-328-8 .
  • with A. Doble and IL Martin: Calming the brain: benzodiazepines and related drugs from laboratory to clinic. Martin Dunitz Limited, London 2004, ISBN 1-84184-052-1 .
  • with TW Robbins, GV Stimson, M. Ince and A. Jackson: Drugs and the Future: Brain Science, Addictio and Society. Elsevier, 2006, ISBN 0-12-370624-6 .
  • with Shiloh, R. Weizman and DJ: Atlas of Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy. Martin Dunitz Publishers, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-85317-630-2 .
  • with JM Monti, SR Pandi-Perumal and B. Jacobs: Serotonin and sleep; molecular functional and clinical aspects. Birkhauser Verlag, Boston 2007.
  • with TR Robbins and B. Everitt: The Neurobiology of Addiction - New Vistas. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010.
  • Drugs: without the hot air. UIT press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-906860-16-5 .

items

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sylent Jay: David Nutt was awarded the John Maddox Prize in 2013. In: Sensi Seeds. November 6, 2013, accessed January 2, 2016 (blog).
  2. ↑ D. Nutt, LA King, W. Saulsbury, C. Blakemore: Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse. In: The Lancet . Volume 369, number 9566, March 2007, pp. 1047-1053, doi: 10.1016 / S0140-6736 (07) 60464-4 , PMID 17382831 (review).
  3. ↑ David J. Nutt, Leslie A. King, Lawrence D. Phillips: Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis . In: The Lancet . tape 376 , no. 9752 , November 6, 2010, p. 1558-1565 , doi : 10.1016 / S0140-6736 (10) 61462-6 , PMID 21036393 .
  4. ↑ a b c Interview: Kathrin Zinkant: Drug consumption: "All drugs are harmful, but not all are equally harmful". In: Zeit Online . April 22, 2014, accessed December 14, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Cannabis row drugs adviser sacked. In: BBC . October 30, 2009, accessed January 15, 2016 .
  6. ^ Professor Nutt Is Still Fighting Against the UK's 'Moronic' Drugs Laws. In: VICE . May 16, 2013, accessed January 21, 2016 .
  7. ↑ D. Nutt, LA King, W. Saulsbury, C. Blakemore: Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse . In: The Lancet . tape 369 , no. 9566 , March 24, 2007, p. 1047-53 , doi : 10.1016 / S0140-6736 (07) 60464-4 , PMID 17382831 .
  8. ↑ J. van Amsterdam, D. Nutt, L. Phillips, W. van den Brink: European rating of drug harms. In: Journal of psychopharmacology. Volume 29, Number 6, June 2015, pp. 655-660, doi: 10.1177 / 0269881115581980 , PMID 25922421 .
  9. ↑ Lyda Willgress, Anna Hodgekiss: Terminally ill should take LSD, says the former government drug tsar sacked after saying acid was 'safer than alcohol'. In: mail online . March 7, 2015, accessed January 21, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Christopher Hope: 'Ecstasy no more dangerous than horse riding' Taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse, according to the head of the Government's drug advisory body. In: The Telegraph. February 7, 2009, accessed January 21, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Nutt, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nutt, David John (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1951