Advisory Council On The Misuse Of Drugs Research Articles

Government advisory body has 150 medicines on watch list for signs of misuse

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is currently monitoring 150 medicines as part of a “watch list” of drugs that have the potential for being supplied illicitly and abused. The development of a watch list “of emerging prescribed substances” was first recommended in an ACMD report published in 2016 on the ‘Diversion […]

Home Office to consult this year on adding DNP to list of regulated poisons

The diet pill 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) could be added to the list of regulated poisons, the UK government has announced. In a statement, the Home Office announced a consultation on re-classifying the drug as a poison, following advice issued by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). If the drug is re-classified it will mean that […]

Evidence-based policy? The re-medicalization of cannabis and the role of expert committees in the UK, 1972–1982

BackgroundCannabis was introduced to the UK as a medical product in the nineteenth century. However, with questions over its safety, efficacy, and possible harms its medical role diminished and by the 1950s it was viewed as a drug of misuse. Nonetheless, scientific and lay knowledge around cannabis expanded from the 1960s and cannabis re-appeared in different therapeutic forms. In re-medicalizing cannabis, science-policy transfer proved important and was enabled by the developing mechanism of expert committees, most notably the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). MethodsThis article draws upon previously unknown archival material on the ACMD held at the National Archives and covers the period 1972–1982. It considers how expert groups were established, their membership, and the evolving discussion over therapeutic cannabis within the broader drug policy debate. ResultsThree distinct periods emerged: 1972–1976 with the creation of the Working Group on Cannabis; 1977–1979 when the Working Group focused on potential amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act and recommended downgrading cannabis from Class B to Class C; 1980–1982 when the Expert Group on the Effects of Cannabis recommended downgrading cannabis and encouraged research into cannabis as a medicine. Sources reveal that driven by drug control imperatives the ACMD stimulated research on cannabis leading to increased research on medical applications. ConclusionExpert advice was critical in the process of re-medicalization. Initially, discourse occurred in the closed expert committees of the ACMD. The drug problem had been framed under the criminal justice system but as the limitations of this were revealed, and there was continuing uncertainty over cannabis’ impact, new approaches to cannabis were sought. It was this combination of more relaxed attitudes towards cannabis, research incentives, as well as a developing desire to draw medical needs away from discussion of drug control that was to allow re-medicalization to develop.

The new drug phenomenon

The new drug phenomenon

Sending a message: Ecstasy, equasy and the media politics of drug classification

In February 2009, the UK government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) published a review of MDMA (ecstasy) which recommended a reclassification from the highest class A to the ‘intermediate category’ class B, on the basis of a review of recent scientific research. This became a matter of news attention alongside a recent journal article by Professor David Nutt, the chairman of the ACMD, in which ecstasy consumption was suggested to be no more dangerous than horse-riding. The home secretary Jacqui Smith rejected the recommendations and Professor Nutt was forced to apologise for making the comparison. Some sections of the media coverage around this topic contrasted the (implicitly irrational) political response to the review with the authority of the scientific evidence it represented, while other media accounts characterised Nutt either as an ‘out of touch’, or ‘immoral’ academic or as having a politically motivated social agenda. In this way, risk issues are played out in, and through, media discourses of science and political authority. This paper analyses the national newspaper coverage of the debate around the risks of ecstasy use and drug classification in the context of the political imperatives within media accounts, and identifies the key discursive strategies employed by those engaged in the media debate. The paper briefly discusses the relevance of a number of risk theories before focusing on the governmentality approach to risk in order to explain how, despite the conservatism inherent in recent drug policy, the neo-liberal managerialism evident in recent UK governmental discourses largely sets the agenda in the media coverage.

Addicted to distortion: the media and UK drugs policy

Under New Labour, there was no area of public policy that reflected the imprint of media influence more vividly than the issue of drugs. The sacking of Professor David Nutt, the banning of mephedrone, and arguments about the harm classification of ecstasy and cannabis have all demonstrated a government in thrall to the views of the Daily Mail and The Sun. This paper traces the contours of the media‐government relationship on drugs through content and framing analysis and interviews with former members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), former Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, and a leading newspaper columnist. It concludes that science was trumped by fears stoked by the media.

Sexual assaults facilitated by drugs or alcohol

Over the past 10 years, there has been a rise in the number of reports of drugs being used covertly to incapacitate potential victims for the purpose of sexual assault. However, recent evidence from forensic studies indicates that alcohol is much more commonly implicated in cases of drug facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) when victims are too intoxicated to give consent. Campaigns that warn about the risk of becoming a victim, or even a perpetrator, of sexual assault by excessive use of alcohol are being increasingly promoted as a necessary step in addressing the problem. New recommendations from the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and from the Council of Europe call for better monitoring of drug- and alcohol-facilitated sexual assault. However, public attitudes to sexual assault in the form of stereotyping and victim blaming are prevalent and entrenched and are widely recognized as barriers to reporting this type of crime. Population surveys suggest that up to 20% of women experience some form of sexual assault in their adult lifetime but reporting and conviction rates remain low. Monitoring DFSA will require a raft of changes, including improved methods of forensic analysis and training for police and hospital emergency staff.

Ombudsman's fifth report

The Lancet's first ombudsman, Prof Thomas Sherwood, published four annual reports, the first in 1997. 1 Sherwood T Lancet Ombudsman's first report. Lancet. 1997; 350: 4-5 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar , 2 Sherwood T Ombudsman's second report, and tobacco. Lancet. 1998; 352: 7-8 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar , 3 Sherwood T Ombudsman's third report. Lancet. 1999; 354: 91-92 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar , 4 Sherwood T Ombudsman's fourth report. Lancet. 2000; 356: 8 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar The initial terms of reference have been clearly set out, 1 Sherwood T Lancet Ombudsman's first report. Lancet. 1997; 350: 4-5 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar , 5 Horton R The Lancet's Ombudsman. Lancet. 1996; 348: 6 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (25) Google Scholar and they remain appropriate for the problems that have arisen since. Seven complaints were received in the past year, compared with six in 1999–2000. Five were referred through the Editor. They are briefly summarised in the table, but four of them are worth amplifying. Challenge of reducing drug-related deathsThe public-health attention given to deaths caused by illicit drug use in general, and by drug overdose in particular, should be commensurate with their contribution to premature death. For too long these deaths have been regarded as an unavoidable hazard of illicit drug use, their neglect abetted by the implicit view that the lives of illicit drug users are less deserving of being saved than those of others. In its report published this week,1 the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has rejected these implicit assumptions. Full-Text PDF

Challenge of reducing drug-related deaths

The public-health attention given to deaths caused by illicit drug use in general, and by drug overdose in particular, should be commensurate with their contribution to premature death. For too long these deaths have been regarded as an unavoidable hazard of illicit drug use, their neglect abetted by the implicit view that the lives of illicit drug users are less deserving of being saved than those of others. In its report published this week,1 the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has rejected these implicit assumptions. Its view is that “drug-related deaths can, will and must in the near future be radically reduced in number”. It points out that the effort that society expends on preventing premature deaths “should apply no less to drug misusers than it does to other classes of people”.1