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Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is a British statutory advisory non-departmental public body, which was established under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Agency overview

1971 (1971)

Advisory non-departmental public body

United Kingdom

  • Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, Chair

Home Office

Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

formal surveys undertaken for, or on behalf of, government including the , the Forensic Science Service statistics, general population surveys, school surveys as well as international/European surveys such as European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other drugs;

British Crime Survey

the law enforcement agencies;

voluntary sector organisations with concerns and responsibilities for those who misuse drugs;

professional bodies;

published and unpublished scientific literature;

submissions from special interest groups and the general public.

One of the key functions of the ACMD is to recommend classification of new or existing drugs, which may be misused.


The sources of evidence[1] that the ACMD uses are


In order to have a rough but quantitative measure of the harms of a drug, the ACMD uses[1] a risk assessment matrix, where nine different aspects of harm for each drug are evaluated:

Public opinion[edit]

Previous Home Secretaries, when responding to the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, have all reiterated that the majority of public opinion is against reforming the current stance on prohibition. However, a poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats found that when the definitions of three regulatory options were given to members of the public instead of simply asking "Do you think drugs should be legalised?" the majority in fact supported new regulatory control.[35]

Wootton Report

Arguments for and against drug prohibition

Drug liberalisation

Drug policy reform

Drugs controlled by the UK Misuse of Drugs Act