The ‘Partnership for a Drug-Free America’ has long been a rather repellent organization, but for sheer stupidity a full page advertisement that it is running in today’s New York Times takes some beating. The advertisement is dominated by a blown-up copy of the death certificate of a young woman. The cause of death is given as “acute drug intoxication (MDMA)” . This, readers are told, should be the starting point for discussing Ecstasy “with [their] kids.”

Do the prohibitionists never learn?

There are, certainly, dangers associated with Ecstasy, not least the profoundly disturbing possibility that it might be associated with Parkinson’s disease, but, given its popularity and the circumstances in which it is supplied (there’s no quality control for an illegal drug, after all), mortality rates appear to be very low. Now, any death as a result of drug use is a tragedy, but to suggest that parents’ first discussion with their children on the topic of Ecstasy should begin with a highly unrepresentative disaster is to suggest that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America prefers crude scaremongering to reasoned discussion.

Wait a minute. What am I saying? Of course that’s what they prefer. They are drug warriors.