December 4, 2003
War-on-Drugs Guerillas Ecstatic at Retraction
Remember my missive on my summer of drugs and concern that I had damaged my brain. Part of that concern was based on research that is now being retracted thanks to foul-ups at the lab where research was done.
It turned out that the $1.3 million study, led by Dr. George A. Ricaurte of Johns Hopkins University, had not used Ecstasy at all. … It was not the first time Dr. Ricaurte’s lab was accused of using flawed studies to suggest that recreational drugs are highly dangerous. In previous years he was accused of publicizing doubtful results without checking them, and was criticized for research that contributed to a government campaign suggesting that Ecstasy made “holes in the brain.”
Dr. Ricaurte, a 50-year-old neurologist at Hopkins since 1988, is probably the best-known Ecstasy expert in the war on drugs.
Some expert, there. I still think research needs to be done on the effects of “recreational” pharamaceuticals on the brain, but it should be funded by “sin taxes” imposed on drug sales. (Yes, I believe in sin taxes.) The government shouldn’t be paying for this kind of biased research, and putzes like this guy shouldn’t be doing the work.
