Visualising the Guardian Datablog

November 6, 2009

I’m doing a regular weekly visualisation for the excellent Guardian Datablog, the front-end for an amazing library of statistics and data, lovingly hand-gathered by The Guardian.

My first post is about Deadly Drugs.

There’s been a furore over here in the UK about the dangers of illegal drugs. The Government has sacked its most senior drugs advisor, Dr Professor Nutt, after he claimed cannabis was no more harmful than alcohol. And that horse-riding, and specifically ‘equasy’ (Equine Addiction Syndrome) was riskier than taking ecstasy. (Statistically he’s correct. His study here.).

Anyway, digging at the numbers behind his statements and how drugs are reported in the popular press, I found some stuff I didn’t expect about drug harms.

Check out the article on The Guardian blog for detail and data. You want both right?

Related posts
Posted in Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, De-Hyping, Drugs, Health, Visual Journalism.
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53 Comments

  1. daniel campos
    Posted November 19, 2009 at 2:38 am | Permalink

    And there’s even more!!!:

    Also, in the spreadsheet that he uses for the statistics (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7892) on cannabis and MDMA, it clearly states that are ” Number of deaths where selected substances were mentioned on the death certificate” – that’s why there are 19 for cannabis.

    Now….

    It is very well known by everybody that number of deaths where ALCOHOL was mentioned on the death certificates is several thousands, not hundreds, and therefore this graph is not only bad, it is *extremely* bad.

  2. big boss
    Posted November 19, 2009 at 3:42 am | Permalink

    what the ,, prohibition peddling ,,,, 19 deaths for cannabis ,, prove it! ,
    i should think it’s saved more!!!!

    http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=169748050377&ref=ts

  3. Subba Rao
    Posted November 19, 2009 at 3:45 am | Permalink

    This is a great information, ofcourse cannabis deaths are debatable. There are many theories behind this.

5 Trackbacks

  1. By Tweets that mention Visualising the Guardian Datablog | Information Is Beautiful -- Topsy.com on November 6, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by greychampion, Instant QuoteStore. Instant QuoteStore said: Visualising the Guardian Datablog http://bit.ly/YIWbq [...]

  2. By Visualising the Guardian Datablog | Information Is Beautiful | Alcohol abuse,addiction and how to on November 6, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    [...] View post:  Visualising the Guardian Datablog | Information Is Beautiful [...]

  3. By www.LadyHi.net on November 7, 2009 at 6:42 am

    Deadliest Drugs: Deaths vs. Media Coverage …

    Cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol. And horse-riding is riskier than taking ecstasy.
    …

  4. By pligg.com on November 7, 2009 at 6:49 am

    Deadliest Drugs: Deaths vs. Media Coverage [INFOGRAPHIC] …

    http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/visualising-the-guardian-datablog/…

  5. By Review: The Visual Miscellaneum by David McCandless | FlowingData on November 16, 2009 at 7:53 am

    [...] at Information is Beautiful during the past few months, leading up to the book release and recently started doing a weekly graphic for The Guardian Datablog. The book is like that, but much more of [...]

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