My take on this story is that this is basically David Nutt trolling the UK government. I don't believe it's his intention at all to look at the practicalities of manufacturing such a drug.
What he does want to do, however is to get the government into a knot with regard to its drugs policy. Nutt has always been for a drugs policy based solely on the harm that a drug would do. He wants drug policy to be stringently evidence-based.
So he starts talking about a drug with zero harmful side effects but with the enjoyable effects. He wants to try and goad ministers into talking about whether such a drug would be banned or allowed. So far the media hasn't really taken the bit between the teeth, however.
For a moment, I thought he'd made synthonol (that's one for Star Trek fans), but your explanation makes much more sense.
Here's the background:
UK drugs law places drugs on 3 levels of illegality.
Class 1 (e.g. heroin): very illegal. Strict punishments for possession.
Class 2 (e.g. marijuana): illegal. If you're caught with a small quantity, you'll probably be let off with just a caution.
Class 3 (e.g. body-building steroids): illegal to sell. Legal to possess in small quantities.
The law requires the Secretary of State, under the advisement of a panel of experts, to classify drugs according to the level of harm they cause. David Nutt was on that panel.
The panel advised, among other things, that marijuana should be moved to Class 3. And, for a time, that was what happened. It was actually legal to smoke marijuana in the UK. Then the government changed its mind, and moved marijuana back to Class 2. The panel resigned in protest. David Nutt complained especially loudly, and started comparing the risks of MDMA to horse-riding and so on.
Apologies for any errors. This is just from memory.
There's also soma from Brave New World. Not sure if Aldous Huxley was the first to write about the idea, but it's hard to argue that he wasn't the first to bring it up well.
No, cannabis briefly became a Class C drug which did not make it legal, or even decriminalised. Class C drugs in the UK carry a theoretical penalty of 2 years in prison for possession and 14 for supply and production. Though the sentencing guidelines are nowhere close to that.
The police do have a system of "cannabis warnings" over here which treats being caught along the lines of an official "don't do this again" unless you're either a child, keep being caught, or the circumstances warrant a straight up arrest.
What is wrong with using science in public policy - I really think the current war on drugs is pretty backwards (like a school without evolution, largely based on what people feel). People will put much more unsafe things in their bodies if it's all illegal. In fact given the amount of heroin coming out of Afghanistan since we invaded, a Canadian mayor and a UK Lord having been caught doing hard drugs - I think you have to ask is the problem everywhere and maybe we should take a different approach seeing as the current one isn't working?
Sounds unlikely, as he has talked about this before - He told me after a talk 7-8 months ago that he is well capable of making such a drug but that he doesn't have the funding (and he wasn't even looking for funding or publicity yet).
I'd be quite surprised if he is just trolling them.
What he does want to do, however is to get the government into a knot with regard to its drugs policy. Nutt has always been for a drugs policy based solely on the harm that a drug would do. He wants drug policy to be stringently evidence-based.
So he starts talking about a drug with zero harmful side effects but with the enjoyable effects. He wants to try and goad ministers into talking about whether such a drug would be banned or allowed. So far the media hasn't really taken the bit between the teeth, however.