Channel 4 drugs programme criticised by Government's chief adviser "The dressing up of the Channel 4 project as "research" is flimsy, and there is a danger that such programmes may glamorise drug-taking as a form of entertainment." His comments came as it emerged that 1.9million people, an 11.4 per cent share of the audience, watched Drugs Live: the Ecstasy Trial on Wednesday night. The programme featured Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP who is a qualified doctor, among 25 volunteers given either an MDMA tablet or a dummy pill so their reaction could be filmed and studied on MRI brain scanners. It was presented by the newsreader Jon Snow, who admitted on the Channel 4 website that he had once driven down a motorway while high on LSD. Despite the interest in the programme, new figures suggest misuse of drugs is continuing to fall out of fashion. Home Office statistics taken from crime surveys for 2010-11 suggest that 3million people aged between 16 and 59 have taken an illicit substance in the past year, the lowest level since polling began in 1996. Even the popularity of new drugs such as the former "legal high" mephedrone is falling among young people, with only 3.3 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds trying it in the past year. The scientists involved in the programme, Prof David Nutt and Prof Val Curran, said: "Our research on MDMA is unique and ground-breaking in many ways. For the first time the effects of MDMA have been studied using an experimental approach with validated tasks to explore social cognitive processes which may underpin the pro-social effects of the drug. Moreover it is the largest and most detailed imaging study of the effects of MDMA on the brain. In the scanner we used tasks to measure brain processes never before studied under the influence of the drug such as self-referent encoding an autobiographical memory. For both tasks and during rest periods we performed state of the art analyses of brain activity and connectivity. Of course we are aware of the few studies looking at how the brain responds to MDMA while people are performing language or emotional tasks. Our research builds on and extends these findings. A Channel 4 spokesman added: "The programmes aim to cut through the emotional debate surrounding ecstasy and accurately inform the public about the effects and potential risks of MDMA, as well as allowing a discussion about issues raised with people representing a wide range of views, including experts such as Professor Andy Parrott. The programmes also look at whether results from the study could also inform future studies into potential clinical use of the drug, particularly in the therapeutic treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The programmes do not glamorise drug taking and reflect both the positive and negative aspects of using MDMA.