Always reverse the statistic.
We learn today that one third of Britons has tried an illegal drug. So two thirds haven't. What about us? When is our cultural life going to depict us, and when is the political-media class going to treat us, as the norm that we are.
One quarter of teenagers has tried an illegal drug. So three quarters of them haven't. What about them? (Something very similar applies to both the cultural and, in both the broad and the narrow senses, political treatment of underage sex, among other things). And note that even so much as ever having tried an illegal drug is much lower than among the population at large among those born a very long time after the summer of 1968.
When questioned, only one tenth of teenagers had used an illegal drug in the previous month. Not week. Month. Leaving nine tenths who had not even done that.
When are we going to see headlines about how two thirds of people have never taken drugs, about how three quarters of teenagers have never taken drugs, and about how nine out of every ten teenagers do not take drugs on anything remotely approaching a regular basis? When are we going to see policies based on those realities?
Probably around the time that we will see reporting and policy-making about how, say, nineteen out of every twenty men do not use prostitutes. Or four in ten people do not intend to vote next time, because they have no one to vote for.
No one to vote for if you have never taken an illegal drug and believe that the State should act against both the practice itself and its promotion in the wider culture, for example.
Always reverse the statistic.
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