DRUG CRACKDOWN CONNECTION IS SLOPPY SCIENCE

Statisticians and folks committed to evidenced-based practice must have
cringed when they read the May 6 article, "Police crackdown has cut drug
use, expert doctor says." The claim that a causal relationship exists
between the police crackdown on drug dealers in the Downtown Eastside and
an increase in those seeking methadone treatment is seriously flawed. It is
sloppy science and dangerously misleading to base a causal relationship on
anecdotal evidence collected in some unexplained fashion, by one individual
at one clinic, and without considering the multiple confounding variables
influencing drug use and treatment seeking by intravenous drug users.

The same applies to another claim in the article. Suggesting that fewer
people in cocaine psychosis are picking at their skin and crawling on the
streets is an indicator of success of the police crackdown is equally
flawed and quite silly. Correlation perhaps, but it's still too early to
even suggest that.

Readers, beware!

Dyan Siegl

Registered Nurse

Vancouver