Following on from the death of Amy Winehouse, Professor David Nutt (left) said her case was fascinating. 'She sums up the whole issue we have in Britain now with addiction'

Published: 2 May, 2013
by RICHARD OSLEY

THE government drugs adviser sacked after suggesting ecstasy and LSD caused less harm than alcohol has claimed the tragic death of Amy Winehouse was a missed opportunity to warn ­people about the dangers of drinking.

Speaking at the Flaxon Ptootch hair salon and gallery in Kentish Town Road, Kentish Town, Professor David Nutt said the case could have been used to raise public awareness, particularly about the heightened dangers to addicts who relapse during periods of abstinence.

He said: “There is a lack of balance and the lack of understanding between our alcohol concerns and our concerns about MDMA [Ecstasy], and the alcohol industry drives that.

"Most people don’t know just how dangerous alcohol is. In Britain today, three young people die every week from alcohol poisoning.”

Professor Nutt, the former chairman of the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said: “The only person who has died of acute alcohol poisoning recently that people have heard of is Amy Winehouse. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to tell the world how dangerous it is.

“Amy’s case is fascinating. She sums up the whole issue we have in Britain now with addiction.

"She was an addict, largely to alcohol. She stopped. She was cured. She was dry. She was recovered, for about six weeks.

"Then she relapsed and she drank a fair bit – one and a half bottles of vodka – and it killed her.”

Ms Winehouse, the award-winning singer who gained worldwide fame with hit albums Frank and Back To Black, was found dead at her home in Camden Square, Camden Town, in July 2011. A statue of her is due to be erected on the balcony at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm Road.

Professor Nutt told the audience at Flaxon Ptootch last week: “If she drank that much when she was drinking regularly, then it probably wouldn’t have killed her because she would have been tolerant.

"That’s what happens with many addictions, heroin addiction particularly.

"You recover, you lose tolerance, and when you relapse your likelihood of dying is massively elevated.

“This is a serious challenge to the government’s recovery and abstinence agenda, because if you can’t maintain abstinence then you are at a much greater risk of dying. I was very disappointed that there wasn’t a campaign. This was a fantastic way to warn people of the dangers.”

Professor Nutt was fired from his chief adviser role in 2009 by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson after publishing a paper which warned how alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than some illicit drugs.

“Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth,” he wrote. “Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively.”

He had already clashed with Mr Johnson’s predecessor Jacqui Smith after she ignored his recommendation to reclassify cannabis to a class “C” substance and comparing the risks of getting hurt horse-riding to those associated with some illegal drugs.

During his talk in Kentish Town, Professor Nutt suggested there had been an inexplicable rush to criminalise magic mushrooms under the Blair government.

He added that cannabis consumption in the United Kingdom had dramatically increased over the past 40 years but recorded illness from it had not.

The government had “scratched around”, the professor argued, to find a link to schizophrenia.

Professor Nutt said: “One of the arguments with cannabis is that nobody ever overdoses on cannabis. Death rates from cannabis are negligble. It is very hard to find any harms.

“The reason I got sacked was that I was continually arguing that the government’s focus on new drugs was almost a deliberate attempt to avoid dealing with the big problem, which was alcohol.”