Ecstasy and LSD should probably be downgraded from Class A to Class B, a scientist who advises the Government on drugs laws said today.

Professor David Nutt, chairman of the technical committee of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), told MPs that ecstasy's presence alongside other hard drugs such as heroin and crack was an "anomaly".

Asked by the Commons' all-party Science and Technology Committee which drugs were wrongly classified, Prof Nutt said: "I think MDA, LSD and ecstasy probably shouldn't be Class A.

"I think that barbiturates might be worth moving up to Class A.

"These are the most obvious anomalies that we see."