Drugs without the Hot Air by David Nutt
In 2009, David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist who served as chair of Britain's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), published a paper in a medical journal that offered a provocative thesis: horseback riding, he wrote, was more dangerous than taking ecstasy. Examining the two activities across a range of metrics, Nutt estimated that every 10,000th ecstasy pill leads to an “adverse event,” while a rider is injured every 350th episode.
The story went viral and the details of Nutt's analysis were lost in the ensuing media tempest. His own organization tried to distance itself from