Professor David Nutt is a qualified Psychiatrist, Psychopharmacologist, researcher, and famously, the former chief government drugs advisor sacked for giving a lecture. In this (never before filmed)  lecture, recorded at the end of last year at Oxford university, David covers the material in the lecture for which he was censured and describes recent findings that confirm all of his original statements.

Unfortunately Oxford University have censored some slides “for copyright reasons”. This is pretty regressive to say the least because the slides are clearly covered under the principles of fair use and criticism (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988). I’d expect Oxford University to stand up for this principle in an academic context, particularly because most of the censored material is David’s own work (although publishers hold the copyright). Not to worry though, I’m prepared to stand up for this principle and have included the key censored material (or an artists impression) and more importantly, the censored references below. (To be updated as more information becomes available)

Live Update: 27/01/20 (02.17)

Prof. Nutt has replied that Oxford University were authorised to censor slides of celebrities.

@neurobonkers @deevybee Just a couple of photos of celebs that hadn’t been cleared. OU haven’t censored me!

— David Nutt (@ProfDavidNutt) January 26, 2012

My reply: It appears that much more than that has been censored, I have listed timestamps below. Some of the data slides are very clearly digitally smeared after the event. I guess there’s an outside chance that some of the other blurred and overexposed data slides are due to very bad camera work but the scale of the slides affected seems to suggest that the cameraman has been instructed to blur slides containing data or citations. Apart from the segments affected, the majority of text is displayed in high clarity even when wide camera angles are being used.

03.44 Copyright notice: “some images are blurred for copyright reasons”.

13.51 Image of the Prime Minister (Public domain, surely?)

14.20 Drinks industry data “but this is the truth”

21.47 European Brain Council data (visible for a split second but then the exposure is shifted)

22.14 Hospital admissions (images digitally swirled)

22.40 alcohol consumption has doubled – as the real costs have halved (lense shifts heavily out of focus)

23.28 The rise of liver deaths: Standardised mortality rates, “the most chilling data of all” (lense taken out of focus)

24.09 Drunk Exxon tanker driver crash slide (data digitally swirled)

24.35 Drunk pilot report (data digitally swirled)

28.12 Drug related deaths (lense taken out of focus)

40.20 Reporting of drug related death (camera pans away from slides)

49.16 Placebo citation (digitally swirled)

49.30 Placebo data (digitally swirled) “this data is rather distorted” (oh, the irony)

50.16 Normalised data “he changed the statistics there.. a very very nice analysis showing how they had distorted the data” (data digitally swirled) – The irony, it’s killing me.

50.26 Regulator data (data digitally swirled)

50.35 Anti-depressant graph (data visibly digitally swirled)

56.59 Times quote (blurred and audio muted)

58.22 Daily Mail quote (muted)

63.30 This is why this is such a heartbreaking, cruel irony.

NB: I’m not suggesting malintent, it appears that copyright fears are out of hand, to the point that from the video it’s impossible to determine the source or even the nature of the majority of citations. As the youtube comments make clear this is a pretty big deal for public viewers who even if they can track down the source themselves, can’t view journal papers without a subscription - nowadays normally approaching thousands of pounds for a basic sub. Without a sub, non-academics and third world academics are typically looking at £20 plus a day for 24 hours DRM restricted use of a singe article, on a single computer.

By the way, a massive thanks is due once again for all of your hard work, especially taking so much time to deliver public talks and for making so much of your work available without a paywall, a near impossible feat for todays researchers it now seems.

 

 

Censored Material (To be updated as more information becomes available):

“I ask the Government not to return to retribution and war on drugs. That has been tried, and we all know that it does not work”

David Cameron, House of Commons, 5th December 2002

Media Bias in Reporting of Drug Deaths (Click for PDF)

Click here to read more on the continuing censuring of scientists and medical experts from drug policy.

Relevant References:

Nutt, D., King, L., & Phillips, L. (2010). Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis The Lancet, 376 (9752), 1558-1565 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61462-6

Nutt, D. (2009). Estimating drug harms: a risky business? Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (PDF)

Halpern JH, Sherwood AR, Hudson JI, Gruber S, Kozin D, & Pope HG Jr (2011). Residual neurocognitive features of long-term ecstasy users with minimal exposure to other drugs. Addiction (Abingdon, England), 106 (4), 777-86 PMID: 21205042

Carhart-Harris, R., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., Stone, J., Reed, L., Colasanti, A., Tyacke, R., Leech, R., Malizia, A., Murphy, K., Hobden, P., Evans, J., Feilding, A., Wise, R., & Nutt, D. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1119598109

Measham,F. Moore, K. Østergaard, J. (2011). Mephedrone, ‘‘Bubble’’ and unidentified white powders: the contested identities of synthetic ‘‘legal highs” DRUGS AND ALCOHOL TODAY, 11, 137-146 (PDF)

Editorial team (2010). The EMCDDA annual report 2010: the state of the drugs problem in Europe. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, also published in Euro surveillance :European communicable disease bulletin, 15 (46) PMID: 21144426  (PDF)

World Health Organisation (WHO). (2009). Report on mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risk. GLOBAL HEALTH RISKS. (PDF)

Institute of Alcohol Studies. (2006). The Impact of Alcohol on the NHS Factsheet (PDF)

(Note: I wasn’t at the lecture but I organised a very similar lecture, by Prof. Nutt in Bristol last year and conducted an interview with him, so I know what was on some of the censored slides)