ROLE OF ACMD
89. The then Home Office Minister Caroline Flint
stated in response to a question asking what research had been
promoted by the ACMD in recent years that the Council "does
not actively promote any external research" but "does
commission its own research".[183]
Professor Nutt, Chairman of the ACMD Technical Committee told
us, however, that the Council did "not have the resources
to do extensive novel research". Professor Nutt also suggested
that one reason for the "mismatch between research needs
in addiction and research outcomes" was the fact that "the
ACMD is embedded in the Home Office and the Home Office does not
have any particular representation at the MRC [Medical Research
Council]".[184]
When questioned on this, Sir Michael admitted that the Council
had been "remiss" in not building better links with
the Research Councils, telling us "we probably should and
try to ensure that there are some formal channels of communication
between the ACMD, the MRC and the ESRC [Economic and Social Research
Council]".[185]
The ACMD also told us that links with the Department of Health
had been important in facilitating the promotion of research of
relevance to drugs policy. We note that the proposed merger of
the NHS research and MRC budgets provides an opportunity to strengthen
these relations further.
90. The need to stimulate investment in research
to support policy development has been a recurring theme in each
of the case studies. We will therefore consider it in more detail
in the over-arching Report on the Government's handling of scientific
advice, risk and evidence. In respect of this case study, it
is essential that the ACMD and Home Office develop better relationships
with the Research Councils, particularly the Medical Research
Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, and further
improve relations with the Department of Health. The fact that
the Council has not devoted much effort to this in the past has
been a contributing factor to the weakness of the UK evidence
base on drugs policy and addiction.
91. Finally, we note that Sir Michael argued strongly
that we should take into account the fact that "This is an
area in which it is extraordinarily difficult to do research",
giving the example of the ethical and practical problems posed
by volunteer studies involving ecstasy.[186]
We do not dispute that research of that nature would present significant
challenges but we also note that other methodologies have been
successfully employed which do not entail such ethical difficulties.
There are, for example, large numbers of publications based on
observational studies of patterns of use among existing users,
prospective studies of patterns of use or harm, policy change
studies and clinical intervention studies. We
do not underestimate the challenges involved in undertaking scientific
studies concerning the misuse of illegal drugs, but the Government
must not use this as an excuse for not fulfilling its obligations
to undertake proper evaluations of the impacts of its policies
and to fund research for the public good.
152 
