ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the multiple gaps between the scientific enterprise as actually practiced by working scientists, their host institutions, and their funding bodies, and as then disseminated to the public and used in the processes of political decision-making, and the requirements of a hypothetical process of rational or policy-analytic ("scientific" in the broader sense) policy choice, with specific reference to drug policy. Conflict between good and interesting science and the needs of policy-making is more typical than anomalous. Consider first how the policy works, for good and for ill. Higher taxes will raise prices; higher prices will lead to lower consumption of alcohol and its complements and higher consumption of its substitutes. Idols of the laboratory are principles for conducting and interpreting research that get in the way of the search for truth. Some are imposed from outside; others are chosen for various reasons by the research communities themselves.
