

Megan McArdle: The Cost Of Meth Prohibition - cwan
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/01/the-cost-of-meth-prohibition/70565/

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ubernostrum
I suspect that, as with last time, I'll get to meet some people who conflate
criticism of an unreliable source with _ad hominem_ attacks, but this is your
official reminder that:

1\. Megan McArdle has a pretty lengthy documented history of playing at least
somewhat loosely with her facts (and, frequently, of just outright
misrepresenting or getting them wrong).

2\. As such, it's probably a good idea to do some fact-checking as part of the
process of evaluating her arguments, as the factual premises from which she
reasons may not be sound.

Examples of McArdle's past factual issues:

* [http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/22/abject_ignorance/)

* [http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/why-andrew-sul...](http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/why-andrew-sullivan-is-right-about-megan-mcardle-but-not-in-the-way-he-thinks/)

More such can be located through your friendly local search engine.

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tptacek
This is a _completely_ content-free comment. Unlike lots of HN people, I think
ad-hom has its place. But it only adds value when it's relevant to the
article. It isn't here. McArdle isn't asking you to put faith in her meth
suppression or pharma background to understand her argument. She could be a
semifunctional psychotic and this article would still be solid, if a bit
boring.

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ubernostrum
The last time there was a McArdle article posted, I did some research and
found issues with it; I also found that this is not uncommon for McArdle. So I
posted a comment mentioning this, and got jumped on by a bunch of people for
going _ad hominem_.

So think of it as both public-service announcement (since it's still true that
she's an unreliable source) and sociology experiment, to see how people react
this time around.

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tptacek
Please don't make every article McArdle writes be about McArdle herself.
That's boring.

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pragmatic
Why is it important that Megan McArdle wrote this?

(Her name is in the title, should I know of her for some reason?)

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tptacek
She's The Atlantic's resident libertarian blogger.

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badwetter
Damn Lobbyists! It's a matter of public safety and agree it should be
available only via prescription IMO.

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tptacek
Huh? Really?

