Hi. I'm David McCandless. I'm a visual and data journalist. I run the blog InformationIsBeautiful.net. There I take ideas, issues and data and try to make them into easy-to-digest and hopefully beautiful infographics and images. I like to use information design to help me understand the world and help me sift through the huge amounts of data and statistics that seem to deluge me every day. I hope they can help you too.

My book of information graphics, The Visual Miscellaneum, is out next week in the US, and in February in the UK.

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I'm going to be exploring some of the Guardian's data visually every week. Pushing facts, data, statistics into diagrams, charts and maps to see if there are any unexpected patterns, interesting stories or hidden connections. If you have any ideas, or datasets, or thoughts for images, please email me at InformationIsBeautiful [at] gmail [dot] com.

BNP Profiling

A couple of weeks ago the BNP's membership data was leaked. This allowed the Datablog to create visual map of BNP members across the UK.

I was curious about the relationship between BNP membership and non-white populations. Were the highest pockets in areas with large non-white populations? Could the data predict where the next pocket of racial tension might erupt?

You can see for yourself in the visualisation above.

What I found interesting was that BNP membership in multi-cultural London was practically zero. But in Essex there was a strong correlation between non-white population and BNP pockets. Also, there's significant BNP membership around areas of non-white communities: large swathes of Norfolk, West Wales, and the North East. Is this evidence of 'white flight'? Or just fear generated by seeing communities from afar?

Deadly Drugs

Last week, the government has sacked its most senior drugs advisor, Dr Professor Nutt, after he claimed cannabis was no more harmful than alcohol. And that horse-riding was riskier than taking ecstasy.

(Technically he's right. The lifetime odds of dying from ecstasy overdose is 1 in 17,803. The risk of dying from horse-riding is around double - 1 in 7,833.)

Taking the science behind his statement and mashing it up with press coverage of drug risks creates an interesting picture.

Drug coverage compared Photograph: guardian.co.uk

The government's own data backs up Nutt's assertions. Cannabis seems pretty risk-free, mortality-wise, and its dangers are over-reported in the popular media. Meanwhile, fatalities from legal drugs like paracetamol and anti-depressants are higher than most illicit drugs combined. And those fatalities mostly go unreported.

But this the whole picture? Using raw mortality figures is a bit coarse. Obviously, far more people take paracetamol and alcohol than ecstasy and cannabis. So logically you would expect more deaths for paracetamol and alcohol.

To give more accurate picture of risk, drug deaths should really be taken as a proportion of users.

If you factor in estimated users, a different picture emerges.

Drug deaths compared

The danger of cocaine and solvent use becomes clear. Cannabis, however, still remains relatively risk free. And paracetamol extremely safe.

Interestingly, the data reveals that anti-depressants, especially those from the SSRI (Prozac-like) family, have the same fatality rates as ecstasy. Feeling happy obviously has its price...

Here is the spreadsheet of data for you to explore.

Important notes on the data

• The cannabis death's figure is a bit dubious in my opinion. Firstly, how can you die from cannabis? It's extremely non-toxic. There has never been a single documented case of fatal cannabis overdose. Also, the government's own figures don't tally. While drug figures from the Office Of National Statistics register 19 cannabis related deaths, the mortality stats from the same office log only 1 death.

• The press reports figures are a bit coarse, but consistent. I used the 'drug name' + death as a search via Google News timeline. Here's an example.

Check out the spreadsheet of data to see the rest

• Paracetamol deaths may be squewed a bit by the fact that's it a very common method of suicide.

• Number of users per drug are estimated, ballpark figures. You can see my sources and workings-out on the spreadsheet.

Can you do something with this data?

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