Dear All
The reason for appointing people to sit on Advisory Boards and Councils is to provide independent advice to the Government and other interested agencies.
As part of being appointed it is commonly known that this entitles those appointed to exercise their right to free speech.
It’s how dialogue flows back and forth.
Professor David Nutt, chairman of Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has been sacked.
His crime was exercising his legal rights and in my opinion telling the truth.
The Labour Government has used Cannabis as a political football and now this has come back to haunt them.
In a rare moment of clarity the government lowered Cannabis from a Class B drug to a Class C.
Then when bad headlines came to the Labour Government and they need good headlines they put it back up again.
Now two other members of the Advisory Council which Professor Nutt chaired have resigned in protest at his treatment; Dr Les King and Marion Walker.
Professor David Nutt, chairman of the council, was dismissed after being bold enough to say that cannabis had been reclassified for political reasons.
For Alan Johnson the resignations are a massive political embarrassment because they highlight that the Labour Government were actually wanting people to rubber stamp a pre-defined political agenda.
Johnson’s tenure as Home Secretary has not been a success as there has been no clear leadership available at the top.
He was made Home Secretary by Gordon Brown to sideline him from being a threat to his leadership.
The handling of this situation as been a PR disaster for the Labour Government and Johnson career will suffer.
Gagging free speech doesn’t go down well with the public.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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