Errors of fact from the Home Secretary in emergency debate
During the emergency debate this afternoon the Home Secretary made a number of errors of fact. In particular:
- Professor Nutt gave his lecture at King's College London on July 14, 2009 and not last week as the Home Secretary claimed. The Home Office sent representatives to the lecture at the time.
- Professor Nutt did not attack the Prime Minister in his lecture, nor did he do so in his paper, published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies last week.
- The Home Secretary continued to confuse Professor Nutt's ACMD role and his role as an an independent academic. Professor Nutt gave his lecture and published his paper as an independent academic, not as the chair of the ACMD. The Home Secretary's suggestion that Professor Nutt should have cleared his paper with the Home Office prior to its publication is therefore incorrect and inappropriate.
Furthermore, the Home Secretary did not explain why an independent academic, speaking and publishing in a personal capacity as a Professor at Imperial College London, was dismissed from his chairmanship of the ACMD when he had not been speaking on its behalf.
Click here to read Professor Nutts Estimating drug harms speech.
Click here for Richard Garside's open letter to the Home Secretary.