The tortured statistics aren't a mistake. The state czar requested bad data and he received bad data. As medical examiners tried to point out, broadly defining the parameters of the death reports forwarded to the czar's office would definitely inflate the numbers. Fortunately, the plan's flaws were exposed by the Sentinel. The czar now looks, at best, incompetent.
More deaths make the massive taxpayer funds spent on the drug war seem necessary.
Better yet is the potential long-term gain. In a few years, the czar's number crunchers can say, oops, we made a mistake, we shouldn't be recording some of these deaths as being caused by designer drugs. And, bingo, the goal of reduced drug deaths is attained - on paper, at least. Even if the actual numbers go up, the initial bad data makes it look like the zero tolerance tactics of the drug prohibition are succeeding. The drug warriors know they will fail, but armed with this knowledge they now try to define success in terms of planned failure.