International drug laws have set back key areas of scientific research, including potential medical treatments, a former government drugs adviser has warned.
Professor David Nutt, of Imperial College London, said United Nations conventions on drugs act as some of the most scandalous examples of scientific censorship.
Along with another former government adviser, Dr Leslie King, and Professor David Nichols, of the University of North Carolina, Prof Nutt, writing in Nature Reviews Neuroscience journal, argues that psychoactive drugs used in research should be exempted from severe restrictions.
Prof Nutt resigned as the chairman of the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs in November 2009 over the reclassification of cannabis from a class C to a class B drug. The possession of cannabis, ecstasy and psychedelics is regulated under national laws and international conventions dating back to the 1960s.
Prof Nutt said: "The decision to outlaw these drugs was based on their perceived dangers, but in many cases the harms have been overstated and are less than many legal drugs, such as alcohol. The laws have never been updated despite scientific advances and growing evidence that many of these drugs are relatively safe. And there appears to be no way for the international community to make such changes."
The paper argues that the illegal status of psychoactive drugs makes research into their mechanisms of action and potential therapeutic uses, for example in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, difficult.
He added: "This hindering of research and therapy is motivated by politics, not science. It's one of the most scandalous examples of scientific censorship in modern times. The ban on embryonic stem cell research by the Bush administration is the only possible contender, but that only affected the USA."
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