The years of magical thinking

doi:10.1136/bmj.b4678

Published 11 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4678
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4678

Observations

On the Contrary

The years of magical thinking

Tony Delamothe, deputy editor, BMJ

tdelamothe@bmj.com

The government’s commitment to evidence based policy isbelied by its ministers’ initiatives on drug misuse, dementia,and screening

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

As the parent of offspring who fit both the ecstasy taking andhorse riding demographic, my ears pricked up at the claim thathorse riding was more dangerous than ecstasy. It turns out tobe true. If you track down Professor David Nutt’s editorialin the Journal of Psychopharmacology (2009;23:3-5, doi:10.1177/0269881108099672)you’ll see that horse riding is associated with acuteharm once every 350 episodes and that the figure for ecstasyis once every 10 000 episodes.

The then home secretary, Jacqui Smith, told Professor Nutt,the then chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs,that she was "profoundly disappointed" by his comparison. ThatMs Smith was profoundly disappointed by this truth made a deeperimpression on me than Professor Nutt’s original statementon relative risk.

Since then Ms Smith has returned to the backbenches in a welterof revelations and recriminations over expense claims . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?