http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1809...ref=online-news

'Vital investigations into unexplored aspects of recreational drug use could be abandoned following the removal of the UK government's top scientific adviser on drug misuse. They include investigations of the impact of polydrug use, for example, in which individuals are simultaneously dependent on several drugs.

Last week, David Nutt of Imperial College London was sacked as chairman of the UK's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. UK home secretary Alan Johnson wrote in The Guardian newspaper on 31 October that he took this action because Nutt had attacked government policy.

Johnson was annoyed that Nutt had repeated in public that there's substantial evidence demonstrating alcohol and tobacco to be far more harmful than either cannabis or ecstasy.' [...]