As our interview begins, Professor David Nutt chuckles, “Very few people now stand up and talk bollocks about drugs when I’m around”. Slumped in his chair with a grin on his face, he is both relaxed and enthusiastic.

As we sit in the empty lecture theatre, which will later be filled by people listening to his both hilarious and morbid talk, I ask him why he became involved with drug policy.

He describes his time as a trainee doctor in the ‘70s, “I started seeing people dying for the first time, and I remembered having read about LSD being used to treat terminal illness”. He is perplexed by the decision not to use it, as are many other experts: “it’s a bit weird that you’ve got potentially effective drugs that you can’t use because they’ve been banned by the government for no obvious reason”.Professor Nutt is now the most prominent figure in drug policy reform, famed specifically for his comments concerning the comparative dangers of ecstasy and alcohol.

"It’s very hard to find much in the way of harms from LSD and ecstasy, when people are tripping or under ecstasy they don’t harm other people”, he smiles. “We found no impact whatsoever [on serotonin function]” Nutt announces proudly, contrary to what many believe. As he moves onto alcohol his expression becomes rather less friendly, “huge, huge rising death rates of liver disease” moans Nutt, “and a huge impact on society”.

His attitude towards alcohol is often forgotten amongst more radical views on illicit drugs, but it truly is his main concern. When I quiz him on what he would do if in charge, his first response is “make a government priority to reduce the harms of alcohol”, clearly not the intoxicant-loving “Professor Poison” The Sun would like him to be.

After being fired from the ACMD in 2009, his antipathy towards much of the government remains. “The Home Office listened very intently when you told them what they wanted to hear: ban a drug. And they didn’t listen at all when you told them what they didn’t want to hear” he shrugs, still clearly stunned by their actions. His dismissal provoked significant confusion, in the press and in his own mind. “Probably anger” he ponders, considering why he was sacked, “I think they were angry that I didn’t ask permission to say what I thought”. 
Most interesting, however, are his thoughts on the notorious reclassification of cannabis from C to B, “certainly it’s alleged that a three part deal was cut with the Mail to support Labour, and one of those three things was, I believe, to reclassify cannabis”.

“I think they’ll stop arresting people for possessing cannabis” Professor Nutt says cautiously when asked about the future, unwilling to give too much hope of radical reform.

In his world all drug use would be decriminalised and drugs less harmful than alcohol would be sold “through registered outlets, like the Dutch coffee shops”. But what can we do to help the cause, I ask subsequently, “sign up to my website and tell your parents the truth about drugs!”