Another Anti-drug ad review. But first, a spot of belated propaganda-noticing; an issue of Newsweek that's been floating around our house for a month or so has, on the cover, "North Korea's Dr Evil: Is Kim Jong Il A Bigger Threat Than Saddam?" Previously, I had just thought "what, another scapegoat target for a war?", but today I realised what is probably the true purpose of such a headline - the implied 'fact' of Saddam being any threat at all. The sort of thing you can't pass off as truth if you say it directly, but you can slide it in neatly as an assumption. In truth, it's like asking "does my hand have a bigger nose than my foot?"
Now, the anti-drug. Latest pot-based ad of the genre suggests "one in five drivers tests positive for marijuana - it's more dangerous than we thought". This reeks of suspiciously careful phrasing, to me. One in five drivers, or one in five who were in accidents? If it is one in five who were in accidents, how does that compare against the statistics of people who aren't in accidents? And then, even if it still looks bad, how about comparing the drug-test statistics of similar drivers? The cited statistic is completely meaningless without some more data points to 1. show that there is a correlation in the first place, and then 2. show that it isn't a correlation based on some other factor that affects both of the allegedly causatively related statistics. They might just as well say that being in accidents causes one in five people to test positive for marijuana.
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