The area of research covered by David Nutt in Psychedelics is a fast-moving one, wrapped up in legal amendments and illuminating studies. When I enquired after a review copy, about two months before its publication date, I was told this would not be possible until Nutt had finished writing it. It’s plausible the seasoned, media-literate neuropsychopharmacologist is just lackadaisical with deadlines, but the book’s very first page notes the legalisation of MDMA and psilocybin – aka magic mushrooms – in Australia, for medicinal purposes, almost to the day Psychedelics comes out.

You may know Professor Nutt from his first appearance in the public eye circa 2009, when his criticisms of UK drug policies led to him being upbraided by Jacqui Smith, then sacked from his governmental advisory role by Smith’s equally dim and reactionary Labour cabinet colleague Alan Johnson. In some ways, we have made substantial progress in discourse on such matters since then; in others, very little.

Nutt covers this period and several preceding decades, describing the history of LSD – before its hippy-induced ban in the late 1960s – and its value, underexplored for legal reasons, in treating depression and addiction. Other mind-altering (in a non-pejorative sense) substances including ketamine, DMT and ayahuasca are considered, with Nutt candid about their benefits, limitations and risks.

An accessible pop science book that doesn’t talk down to its readership, Psychedelics certainly isn’t pitched at sesh gremlins, and is hopefully ahead of the curve when it comes to mainstream discourse around this topic, even if any UK government in the foreseeable future is likely to be as timid and conservative as that late-era Blair one.