86 that Rand 420 study: 5th worst of 2011 [View all]

[RainDog]

from Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=top-science-journal

Doh! Top Science Journal Retractions of 2011

#5: Los Angeles marijuana dispensaries lead to drop in crime.

Keep smoking. The RAND Corporation retracted its own report in October after realizing its sloppy data collection.

Crime data compiled from neighborhoods with these highly contentious medical marijuana dispensaries supposedly revealed slightly lower crime rates. The authors attributed this decline not to marijuana itself but rather the presence of security cameras and guards in and around the dispensaries, having a positive effect on the neighborhood. [The History of 8 Hallucinogens]

The L.A. city attorney's office was incensed with the report, having argued the opposite — that the dispensaries breed crime. The city's lawyers soon found critical flaws in RAND's data collection, largely stemming from RAND's reliance on data from CrimeReports.com, which did not include data from the L.A. Police Department. RAND blamed itself for the error, not CrimeReports.com, which had made no claims of having a complete set of data, and, in fact, didn't even know about the study.

This was posted here before. Just wanted to make sure it got notice.