if you're thinking of David Nutt it was a Labour government that sacked him.
"Whacky" Jacqui Smith to be precise. Who was either a bit dim, and failed to grasp how UK drugs laws work, or was a but illegal, and decided to change the law without telling anyone.
You decide.
Either way, the 1971 Misuse Of Drugs Act is a spectacularly fine piece of legislation. Harking back to a day when lawyers really knew how to write Damn Fine Laws.
It sets up a mechanism involving the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs as an independent body to look at the entire spectrum of drugs issues and report to the Home Secretary. The AMCD is constituted of medical, policing, social and chemical experts, and has a remit to look at all aspects of drugs in society.
It's a very well thought out model.
The problem is when any expert looks at "drugs in society" the conclusion is almost immediately that the worst possible way of dealing with them is prohibition. It's basically a licence for criminals to make money.
So ever since then, a load of criminals have been busy playing a helpfully gullible public with Daily Mail type scare stories, in order they can continue to make the countless billions they do. Much the same as Prohibition in the US lasted a lot longer than it would have had the mafia (and other criminal gangs) not paid hugs sums to politicians to keep alcohol illegal.
Drugs laws and censorship work by the very simple premise of allowing a subset of the population to enforce their idea of morality in the rest.
Currently, the ACMD lacks the numbers the law says it needs for the Home Secretary to be able to act on it's recommendations. Which means we've had the Government deciding what it wants with no oversight from the very body it entrusted to do the job.
But then given the pisspoor UK media, it's hardly surprising. When the ACMD recommended that Cannabis be retained as a Class-C drug - and was ignored, Jacqui Smith claimed that it was because the ACMD hadn't thought about "all the aspects", which was a lorryload of horsehit that was then dumped on a pile of bullshit. Not only had the ACMD thought about "all the aspects", but it is in their remit to think of everything.
If you want to trace deceitful politicians rubbishing expert advice in order to placate a thick readership, then I'd submit that moment as a candidate for "idiot zero". Basically Jacqui Smith (egged on by one Gordon Brown) said "you know these experts with hundreds of years of experience in a constellation of subjects ? They're not quite as clever as me, you know. Here's a picture of me wearing bunny ears ...".
As for Gordon Brown ... he pretty much exposed the whole sham by announcing what the government was doing before it had received the ACMD findings.
All of which being said, David Nutts departure came about more because not only does he dislike alcohol (which is a no-no if you are licensing drugs. You really have to love the stuff) but he has (and still is) working on a "safe alcohol" called "synthonol" (if I can remember rightly). And that is never going to be allowed.
If people like a whiff of hypocrisy in their oppressive laws, the Psychoactive Substances Act had to specifically exempt alcohol (this admitting that it is the UKs government approved psychoactive substance) and it also makes incense illegal, so there has to be a special "non aggression pact" between incense users (mainly religious bodies) and the authorities that any prosecutions of incense users will have to be suppressed by the CPS. Which is a dogs breakfast of legislation, but should tell people firmly that there is a lot of state interference in peoples lives they probably weren't aware of.
Of course there's always the my sticking my nose into your business is OK, but your sticking your nose into my business hypocrisy of society. Something you would have thought women would be more aware of than most.