Channel 4 to show class A drug-taking live

People will take Class A drugs live on television in a new programme to be broadcast by Channel 4, it was announced.

Drugs Live, a four-part science series, will look at the effect of illegal drugs and alcohol on the body.

Announcing a raft of new programmes, Jay Hunt, Channel 4's chief creative officer, said the future for the broadcaster lay in taking "real risks".

She said: "When you look across the broadcast landscape, when other broadcasters are more conservative, it's never been more important for Channel 4 to stimulate debate, to challenge the status quo, and above all to be brave."

Introducing the Drugs Live project, she said: "The Government's drugs tsar Professor (David) Nutt was sacked for claiming that LSD and ecstasy were less harmful than alcohol.

"In an incredibly bold experiment we are going to be putting that to the test live, looking at the impact all of those substances have on the human body in a clinical environment."

She said this was an "incredibly important area of social policy" and Channel 4 could put itself on "the front foot to provide some interesting and useful data".

She added that the experiments would take place in a supervised clinical environment.