Blakemore has served in an advisory role for several UK government departments and also for agencies, foundations and government departments overseas. He was a member of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (the Stewart Committee) in 1999-2000 and was an advisor to the Police Federation and the Home Office on the safety of telecommunications systems. He chairs the General Advisory Committee on Science at the Food Standards Agency and is a member of the Wilton Park Advisory Council (Foreign and Commonwealth Office). He has a long-standing interest in policy on drugs of abuse, and is a Commissioner of the UK Drug Policy Commission, an adviser to the Beckley Foundation and a Trustee of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. He was an author of an influential paper published in the "Lancet" in 2007, introducing a rational, evidence-based system for assessing the harms of drugs, which suggested that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than many illegal drugs. He is a member of the Longevity Science Advisory Panel of Legal & General, he sits on the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press and he has served as a scientific advisor to the Technology Development Committee of Abu Dhabi.