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David Nutt
David John Nutt (born 16 April 1951) is an English neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs that affect the brain and conditions such as addiction, anxiety, and sleep. He is the chairman of Drug Science, a non-profit which he founded in 2010 to provide independent, evidence-based information on drugs. In 2019 he co-founded the company GABAlabs and its subsidiary SENTIA Spirits which research and market alternatives to alcohol. Until 2009, he was a professor at the University of Bristol heading their Psychopharmacology Unit. Since then he has been the Edmond J Safra chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences there. Nutt was a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and was President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Nutt completed his secondary education at Bristol Grammar School and then studied medicine at Downing College, Cambridge, graduating in 1972. In 1975, he completed his clinical training at Guy's Hospital.
He worked as a clinical scientist at the Radcliffe Infirmary from 1978 to 1982 where he carried out basic research into the function of the benzodiazepine receptor/GABA ionophore complex, the long-term effects of BZ agonist treatment and kindling with BZ partial inverse agonists. This work culminated in a ground-breaking paper in Nature in 1982 which described the concept of inverse agonism (using his preferred term, "contragonism") for the first time. From 1983 to 1985, he lectured in psychiatry at the University of Oxford. In 1986, he was the Fogarty visiting scientist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, MD, outside Washington, D.C. Returning to the UK in 1988, he joined the University of Bristol as director of the Psychopharmacology Unit. In 2009, he then established the Department of Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College, London, taking a new chair endowed by the Edmond J Safra Philanthropic Foundation. He is an editor of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, and in 2014 was elected president of the European Brain Council.
In 2007 Nutt published a study on the harms of drug use in The Lancet. Eventually, this led to his dismissal from his position in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD; see government positions below). Subsequently, Nutt and a number of his colleagues who had resigned from the ACMD founded the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, later renamed as Drug Science.
Nutt has since produced numerous prominent reports on drug policy through Drug Science, while launching campaigns of support for evidence-based drug policy; including Project Twenty21, Medical Cannabis Working Group, and the Medical Psychedelics Working Group. In 2013, Drug Science launched a peer-reviewed journal - Journal of Drug Science, Policy and Law - for which Nutt was appointed Editor. Nutt also hosts the Drug Science Podcast, in which he engages drug policy experts, policy-makers, and scientists on the topics of drugs and drug policy.
Nutt is the deputy head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. He and his team have published research into psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, as well as neuroimaging studies investigating psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, and DMT.
In November 2010, Nutt published a study in The Lancet - co-authored with Les King and Lawrence Phillips, on behalf of the Independent Committee on Drug Science - which ranked the harm done to individual users and broader society by a range of licit and illicit drugs. Owing in part to criticism of the 2007 study for arbitrary weighting of factors, the 2010 study employed a multiple-criteria decision analysis in its procedure to support their conclusion that alcohol is more harmful to society than heroin and crack (cocaine), whereas heroin, crack, and methamphetamine are most harmful to individuals. Nutt has also published popular-level articles on these findings in newspapers and print media for the general public, which have been met with to public disagreement from other researchers.
Nutt continues to campaign for changing UK drug laws to facilitate greater research opportunities.
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David Nutt
David John Nutt (born 16 April 1951) is an English neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs that affect the brain and conditions such as addiction, anxiety, and sleep. He is the chairman of Drug Science, a non-profit which he founded in 2010 to provide independent, evidence-based information on drugs. In 2019 he co-founded the company GABAlabs and its subsidiary SENTIA Spirits which research and market alternatives to alcohol. Until 2009, he was a professor at the University of Bristol heading their Psychopharmacology Unit. Since then he has been the Edmond J Safra chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences there. Nutt was a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and was President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Nutt completed his secondary education at Bristol Grammar School and then studied medicine at Downing College, Cambridge, graduating in 1972. In 1975, he completed his clinical training at Guy's Hospital.
He worked as a clinical scientist at the Radcliffe Infirmary from 1978 to 1982 where he carried out basic research into the function of the benzodiazepine receptor/GABA ionophore complex, the long-term effects of BZ agonist treatment and kindling with BZ partial inverse agonists. This work culminated in a ground-breaking paper in Nature in 1982 which described the concept of inverse agonism (using his preferred term, "contragonism") for the first time. From 1983 to 1985, he lectured in psychiatry at the University of Oxford. In 1986, he was the Fogarty visiting scientist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, MD, outside Washington, D.C. Returning to the UK in 1988, he joined the University of Bristol as director of the Psychopharmacology Unit. In 2009, he then established the Department of Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College, London, taking a new chair endowed by the Edmond J Safra Philanthropic Foundation. He is an editor of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, and in 2014 was elected president of the European Brain Council.
In 2007 Nutt published a study on the harms of drug use in The Lancet. Eventually, this led to his dismissal from his position in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD; see government positions below). Subsequently, Nutt and a number of his colleagues who had resigned from the ACMD founded the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, later renamed as Drug Science.
Nutt has since produced numerous prominent reports on drug policy through Drug Science, while launching campaigns of support for evidence-based drug policy; including Project Twenty21, Medical Cannabis Working Group, and the Medical Psychedelics Working Group. In 2013, Drug Science launched a peer-reviewed journal - Journal of Drug Science, Policy and Law - for which Nutt was appointed Editor. Nutt also hosts the Drug Science Podcast, in which he engages drug policy experts, policy-makers, and scientists on the topics of drugs and drug policy.
Nutt is the deputy head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London. He and his team have published research into psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, as well as neuroimaging studies investigating psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, and DMT.
In November 2010, Nutt published a study in The Lancet - co-authored with Les King and Lawrence Phillips, on behalf of the Independent Committee on Drug Science - which ranked the harm done to individual users and broader society by a range of licit and illicit drugs. Owing in part to criticism of the 2007 study for arbitrary weighting of factors, the 2010 study employed a multiple-criteria decision analysis in its procedure to support their conclusion that alcohol is more harmful to society than heroin and crack (cocaine), whereas heroin, crack, and methamphetamine are most harmful to individuals. Nutt has also published popular-level articles on these findings in newspapers and print media for the general public, which have been met with to public disagreement from other researchers.
Nutt continues to campaign for changing UK drug laws to facilitate greater research opportunities.