Originally Posted by
kyplaskon
Nice story about doctors as advocates. Would you consider issuing a statement calling cars a "Significant health risk" to other forms of transportation?
To answer your question, yes, I dichotomy often. The similarity between drugs and cars is the researcher's statement "significant health risk." Calling drugs a "significant health risk" at a 2 percent injury rate requires them to examine the opinion statement of what constitutes a "significant health risk." If everything over 2 percent constitutes a significant health risk, then the researchers should have context of what are the significant health risks for cyclists. By telling the public that drugs are a significant health risk to cyclists, they are drawing people's attention away from the real significant health risk, which is cars. They are likely afraid to call cars a significant health risk or a much greater health risk than drugs because they would run afoul of public opinion and the media is unlikely to pick up and run with the story. What do you think is a more significant public health risk? Cars or drugs? Do we need to re-start the war on drugs? lol
The dichotomy is still absurd, just as is your assumption that identifying the patterns of how drug use affects mortality and morbidity in bicycle accidents is only useful in a war on drugs scenario. I won't get too much into this because it's more a P&R forum issue, but I consider a public health approach (instead of a criminal approach) to drug abuse to be a significant change that needs to be made to save lives so I think your false dichotomy obscures that.
The labeling of "public health problem" really only matters if it's somehow going to affect how policy gets made in the particular area. If you want to advocate for labeling cars a public health risk, make the case that it would change anyone's thinking on this matter. Frankly, I just think you're proposing shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. Most, if not all, of our economy relies on motor vehicles, that's where the parallel to drug abuse just makes the comparison silly.