The Daily Mail Tendency: Deadly Scientists and their Evil Drugs

Another day, another extraordinarily ignorant article from everyone's favourite hate rag. In this article, the broad class of "scientists" gets a trademarked Mail bashing. And all for one government advisor taking a stance on drugs that does not match the reactionary position of The Daily Hate.

Now you could argue that this article is part of a post-positivist approach to life. It isn't, though. It is more of a luddite response. From the type of people who would probably like to burn scientists for being witches. If you don't believe me, read the article all the way through. We see scientists being protrayed as amoral experimenters who would be right at home in the Nazi and/or Stalinist regimes. We also get the hints that we are seeing an incipient coup, with a nightmarish dystopia of rule by scientists hoving into view on the horizon. And various other jaw-droppingly ignorant statements designed to create a culture of fear around scientists because they happen to have (factual) opinions that The Daily Mail doesn't agree with. The article stands as a sound explanation of why supposedly intelligent politicians such as Brown and Johnson would fly in the face of scientific fact when it comes to drug classification - if they appear to be completely hysterical and irrational tough when it comes to drugs, then The Daily Mail will treat them as the most inspirational leaders since Churchill.

Maybe someone with more patience than me would be able to do some good work fisking the article; unfortunately I cannot work up the appetite to take apart the whole sorry thing. Instead, I'll just make some quick comments on the final paragraph:

And to every one who thinks otherwise, I would ask them to carry out a simple experiment. Put a drug, bought casually on the street corner, and a glass of red wine on the table when your teenager comes home from school. Which of them, in all honesty, would you prefer him to try?

I wonder why the author thinks that everyone has a teenager, and that said teenager's gender is male? Personally, I find the concept of worrying about a teenage boy who doesn't exist and is never likely to exist utterly pointless. Rather than eye-opening and terrifying, as the author no doubt intends.

Still, it is the comparison that is so problematic. Put simply, it is loaded so you can only choose the glass of wine. So let's try and even it up a bit. What would you choose if it was a choice between a legal drug such as cannabis, made in safe and healthy conditions in a factory, that is actually safer than that glass of wine? Or how would you feel if it was a choice between a drug and alcohol both bought on a street corner? Or how would you feel if it was a choice between dope and a 100% proof spirit?

Poor journalism and biased reporting/comment is typical of The Daily Mail, and this article is no exception. However it does indicate one of the biggest problems we have in this country as we look towards having an intelligent debate about drugs. Across the board, from politicians through to journalists, the message is sent out that drugs are bad. That they are abnormal. The scientific data, of course, would suggest otherwise. But those who point this out and dare to suggest anything other than the hysterical misinformation about drugs currently being circulated are at best, amoral, and most probably evil people who want to corrupt your kids and turn them into junkies. That is, of course, palpable nonsense - but until the tone of the debate around drugs changes in this country, ignorance and the propagation of unscientific myth are still going to be the order of the day.