Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)
&quot;scientific consensus&quot;<p>I am very troubled by this phrase -- it&#x27;s almost an oxymoron. Science is not democratic, and scientists aren&#x27;t anointed arbiters of facts.<p>Anyone can be a scientist simply by following the scientific method and collecting data in good faith; and a lone outsider with new data can challenge 100 years of &quot;consensus&quot;. Obviously they are subject to challenges themselves, or if it&#x27;s unlikely enough they might reasonably be ignored (e.g. a known charlatan saying they observed cold fusion).<p>Did this terminology start with the &quot;scientific consensus&quot; on anthropogenic climate change (which I do not dispute, by the way)? I think I understand why it was used in that debate, but I don&#x27;t think it was a good precedent. Now it&#x27;s being used to directly apply to policy (&quot;growing scientific consensus on the failures of the global war on drugs&quot;).<p>Before long, it will be used directly in political debates to try to force some scientific organizations to choose a side. And then all credibility is lost.<p>Researching policies that require deep analysis of scientific (or other) data should be left to think tanks or something similar.