Psychoactive drugs may be effective treatments for some disorders
Sacked British adviser fights lonely battle to prove psychoactive drugs may be effective in treating depression and post-traumatic stress
Former British government drug adviser David Nutt caused a media storm this month when he claimed international drug laws are seriously hampering scientific research into magic mushrooms and other psychoactive drugs that could be effective in treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
But is there any hard science behind his claims?
The professor from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London made headlines when he slammed the UN conventions on drugs as amounting to scientific censorship.
Another former government adviser, Leslie King, and Professor David Nichols from the University of North Carolina, backed him up and together they called for psychoactive drugs used in research to be exempt from the law.
"I think every drug that changes the brain should be subjected to scientific study to understand its therapeutic potential," Nutt told with the South China Morning Post.
He was sacked as chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs in 2009 after criticising the decision to toughen the law on cannabis, reclassifying it as a Class B drug.