The 5 Best Drug Scares of 2014

In my Forbes column this week, I recall five of the year's most memorable drug scares, including the CDC's exaggeration of problem drinking, heroin hype following the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and warnings about marijuana-infused candy in trick-or-treat bags. Here is how the piece starts:
The history of drug control in America is a series of panic-propelled policies, most of which have not turned out very well. Those of us who support a calmer, more tolerant approach to psychoactive substances therefore spend much of our time defusing scares aimed at justifying or expanding the government's role in policing our bloodstreams. Here are some of my favorites from the past year.
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Never let a synthetic crisis go to waste.
My body, my choi...wait, wrong thread.
Abortion tools into hoo-haws, and penises into butts. Everything else is verboten!
I suspect most of the use statistics are bogus. I was in 8th grade during the supposed peak of cigarette use according to the chart (20% in the past month), and I didn't know a single kid who smoked. And there's no way that 1 in 4 of my high school peers smoked. Maybe 1 in 10.
No matter how scary the last scary drug scar was, we'll find one that's more scary. It's out there and it's going to get your children!
/the media