whoyg2787

On Thursday, the Sun’s Jon Gaunt wrote that Nutt – described inevitably as the “Nutty Professor” – “must be sacked immediately” over a declaration that ecstasy is safer than alcohol and tobacco.

At the other end of the scale, voices calling for freshwater pearl strands an entirely new drugs policy on the basis that prohibition does not work have grown louder.

“It is time to admit the obvious,” wrote Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former president of Brazil, in the Observer last month. “The ‘war on drugs’ has failed.”

Tom Lloyd, a former chief constable now heavily involved in the global debate surrounding drugs policy, also weighed in weeks later when he described police anti-drugs operations as “pointless” and wrote approvingly of Swiss-style heroin prescription programmes.

Separately, the latest row is also a symptom of the increasingly fraught role of government science advisors who are asked to advise on freshwater pearl pendant politically sensitive issues.

The government’s chief scientist, Prof John Beddington, warned in August that ministers risk alienating science advisers and squandering their experience by dragging them into public rows. On that occasion, he was referring to Jacqui Smith’s very public admoniton of Nutt for his comments in an academic journal comparing the risks of ecstasy to horseriding.

However, the timing of today’s sacking is all the more awkward given that it comes just a week after the government responded to a report by the Science and Technology Select Committee by giving a commitment that the independence of members of scientific advisory committees would be respected.

Reacting tonight to news of the sacking, Dr Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP on the committee, said: “This news will make it much less likely that the cultured pearl jewelry Government will, in the future, receive the best advice – unfettered by the fear of retribution of politicians who don’t like what they hear.”