There’s a really good blog post at Nature about a public argument between a scientist and a politician. (emphasis mine)
David Nutt, chairman of the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a researcher at Bristol University, wrote an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in which he attempted to put some perspective on the illegal drugs debate in the UK by detailing a “harmful addiction I have called equasy”. This turns out to be horse riding: Nutt is making the point that more people die from horse riding than from ecstasy use.
[UK Home Secretary Jacqui] Smith was not impressed, saying “…I felt his comments went beyond the scientific advice that I expect of him… He apologised to me for his comments and I’ve asked him to, as well, apologise to the families of the victims of ecstasy.”
A political opponent of Jacqui Smith’s made the point:
It is not on for a scientist to be called upon by the Home Secretary to publicly apologise for publishing his or her work in a peer-reviewed academic journal, especially when the individual is supposed to be independent of the Government.
But it’s the closing line by the blog author that amazed me for its truthfulness:
9:46 pm on February 10, 2009Sadly all these arguments are based on an utterly false premise: that the government considers scientific advice and not political expediency when making drugs policy.
