Middle classes in Britain drink most alcohol, but smoking is at lowest recorded level

The real problem with the advice on drinking levels is that there was
(and is) no evidence to back up the specific limits (as the former BMJ
editor Richard Smith recounted: The Times October 20, 2007).

In fact, the best that can be said about large amounts of recent
advice issued from the government about health is that it is driven more
by the need of the government to appeal to the swing voters who read the
Daily Mail than by any scientific evidence at all. The Home Secretary,
Jacqui Smith, is particularly prone to this, presumably because she wants
to sound tough on moral "evils" such as drugs and booze. Hence the
upgrading of cannabis and today's row over how bad ecstasy really is.

The disturbing thing is how willing professionals who should know
better are to do what the politicians want. There is significant risk that
the truth will be seriously compromised as the whole research agenda
becomes a trawl for evidence to justify policies that satisfy the Daily
Mail reader rather than a disinterested search for some insight into the
real world.

Competing interests:
None declared