Kevin Sabet is co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an anti-marijuana lobbying group that provides one-sided information in their quest to keep marijuana unavailable.  However, the method he uses  to make his case is unscientific manipulation of evidence, spread in a morally bankrupt way to further his own talking points.  He cherry-picks data and ignores actual scientific evidence in order to confuse and try (desperately) to prove that marijuana is so dangerous that adults cannot use it safely.

I plan to use this page to point out all the ways in which Kevin Sabet gets it so wrong, and you may decide if this behavior is just sheer ignorance or a purposeful attempt to delude people into his erroneous way of thinking.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Lunchtime Poll!



Here is another excellent example of Kevin rejecting actual data that is counter to his argument.  That's no problem for Kev; he can just make up his own data!

So first, let's review the actual numbers.  Polls of Canadians show a majority actually support legalized marijuana.  A poll of Canadians from earlier this year show that 63% are in favor of legalization of marijuana.  That seems way off from the 95% opposing that Kevin seems to think he has "discovered."  So why the difference?

Survey design is a science that is intended to decrease bias.  One way that surveys can be biased is with leading questions.  I wonder if Kevin would ever dream of asking someone a leading question??  Also, the population of the survey must reflect the general population.  There may be some self selection of a population that is talking to an white, male, anti-marijuana lobbyist.  I somehow doubt that his sample population was free of selection bias and represented the diversity in racial, ethnic, gender, age, income, etc., groups that would be needed to actually make any claims.

Overall, this tweet has the scientific veracity of a Heathers lunchtime poll.  But in Kevin's world, when the data is against you, just make up your own facts!

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