How about a substance-related thought experiment?

Imagine you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or a pill. Which is safest?

Think about it for a minute. Not which one you would recommend to someone, but which one would be less likely to kill someone?

You should give them ecstasy, of course. A much larger percentage of people suffer a fatal acute reaction to peanuts than to MDMA.

Never thought of it that way. Food for thought, huh?

Read the editorial at the New Scientist.

Which drug is really the worst?

It’s interesting to see this sort of debate about the harmfulness of legal and illegal recreational drugs going on at the government level. Of course, it’s happening across the pond rather than in the United States, but I can’t imagine it looking too much different here. If a politician in the United States was brave or crazy enough to bring up the topic and quote the science in his or her argument, I’d be incredibly impressed.

Read the article from the Daily Mail.

[Edited to add: The person in question was fired over the weekend. Kind of like the Surgeon General who was fired after saying masturbation was good for kids. *sigh*]