Plans to reclassify Ecstasy give out the wrong message, a Kent drugs expert has warned.

The drug, made famous during the eighties' rave scene, could be downgraded to a class B drug when Government advisers meet next week.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs ACMD will review the classification and is likely to recommend the move, claiming Ecstasy is involved in far fewer deaths than other class A drugs such as heroin.

MPs have already heard from Professor Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of the Medical Research Council, who said: "Ecstasy was at the bottom of the scale of harm and on the basis of present evidence should not be a class A drug."

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This was a view echoed by Professor David Nutt, the incoming president of the ACMD, who suggested tobacco and alcohol were far more dangerous.

But Tony Willams of the Kent-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation charity Kenward Trust said reclassifying Ecstasy would give the wrong message to young people.

He said: "People have died taking it, We're out working with young people and to say it's not quite as dangerous is giving the wrong message. Try telling that to Paul and Janet Betts, whose daughter Leah died taking one."

But the recommendation would not lead to a change in the law: the Government could choose to ignore it.

At the moment possession of Ecstasy carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years.