Why? Many of the flaws that jump out at me are not so significant that they would be worthy of concern on their own and I appreciated other people clarifying the group's affiliations(I probably wouldn't have been curious enough to go back and read a bit more otherwise).

Though honestly if this is a scientific study it is very strange that they omitted their methodology entirely(how did they select the data, how did they compare the statistics before and after, how did they account for confounding factors, etc). That is pretty fundamental to this kind of analysis and in its absence I would be hesitant to put much faith in even their weak conclusions.

The graphs themselves are definitely interesting though and I would not at all be surprised if they were on the right track.

Ha! I had had that exact same reaction. Reading the actual document it comes across as factual and not biased and all sources are referenced.

I like to think of it as the US justice system. I no more expect the Cato institute to argue for outlawing marijuana use than I would expect a prosecutor to drop the case against an axe murderer with 10 witnesses and DNA evidence.

I really don't think HN is shy about pointing out flaws in any study shared here.

And that argument should be supported by something other than pure conjecture

One would think HN commentators would know Graham's hierarchy of disagreement...