POLITICS AND PUBLIC HEALTH: Radley Balko notes that former Surgeon General Richard Carmona has his own problems with politicized science:

One issue Carmona didn’t address is medical marijuana. Last year, the FDA put out a baldly political press release claiming that “no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States.”

This is flatly wrong. A wide-ranging 1999 Institute of Medicine report actually did show medical benefits from smoked marijuana while also finding minimal harmful side effects. The FDA press release was right in one respect: There have been no conclusive studies since. But there’s a good reason for that: The federal government won’t allow them.

Carmona didn’t mention medical marijuana in his list of grievances because Carmona isn’t any more interested in actual science on the medical marijuana issue than the Bush administration is. When the New York Times asked him his position on the issue, he gave the odd reply that he was against medical marijuana because, “Smoking is bad for you.”

In other interviews, Carmona has said medical marijuana is a “science issue, not a political issue,” which would be a great answer had Carmona actually looked at the science during his tenure and not merely at the political landscape.

Of course, merely suggesting that we study the possibility of reforming federal drug policy cost Dr. Jocelyn Elders, one of Carmona’s predecessors, her job. So perhaps you can’t blame him.

Claims that the Bush Administration has politicized science are correct. The implication that this is something new, however, is not. And read the whole thing for more examples involving obesity, alcohol, etc. Among the politicized sciences, “public health” has long been a top offender. As Balko notes: “The Office of Surgeon General always has been overtly political, a captive of the most hysterical public health activists. Its only real powers are tongue-clucking and finger-wagging, usually about the latest moral panic, lecturing the American public to knock off its bad habits, lest somebody get hurt. Richard Carmona’s tenure was no different, which is why it’s laughable to hear him lecture someone else about science.”