Drug experts say alcohol worse than crack or heroin Options

[GodConsciousness]

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others are assessed, British scientists said Monday.

Presenting a new scale of drug harm that rates the damage to users themselves and to wider society, the scientists rated alcohol the most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.

According to the scale, devised by a group of scientists including Britain's Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and an expert adviser to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), heroin and crack cocaine rank as the second and third most harmful drugs.

Ecstasy is only an eighth as harmful as alcohol, according to the scientists' analysis.

Professor David Nutt, chairman of the ISCD, whose work was published in the Lancet medical journal, said the findings showed that "aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy."

He said they also showed that current drug classification systems had little relation to the evidence of harm.

Alcohol and tobacco are legal for adults in Britain and many other countries, while drugs such as ecstasy and cannabis and LSD are often illegal and carry the threat of prison sentences.

"It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," Nutt, who was formerly head of the influential British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said in a statement about the study.

Nutt was forced to quit the ACMD a year ago after publicly criticizing ministers for ignoring scientific advice suggesting cannabis was less harmful than alcohol.

The World Health Organization estimates that risks linked to alcohol cause 2.5 million deaths a year from heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides and cancer -- accounting for 3.8 percent of all deaths. It is the third leading risk factor for premature death and disabilities worldwide.

In an effort to offer a guide to policy makers in health, policing, and social care, Nutt's team rated drugs using a technique called multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) which assessed damage according to nine criteria on harm to the user and seven criteria on harm to others.

Harms to the user included things such as drug-specific or drug-related death, damage to health, drug dependence and loss of relationships, while harms to others included crime, environmental damage, family conflict, international damage, economic cost, and damage to community cohesion.

Drugs were then scored out of 100, with 100 given to the most harmful drug and zero indicating no harm at all.

The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72, followed by heroin with 55 and crack with 54.

Among some of the other drugs assessed were crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine or speed (23), cannabis (20), benzodiazepines, such as Valium (15), ketamine (15), methadone (14), mephedrone (13), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7) and magic mushrooms (5).

Yahoo URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101101/ts_nm/us_drugs_alcohol

[orangesand]

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others are assessed, British scientists said Monday.

Presenting a new scale of drug harm that rates the damage to users themselves and to wider society, the scientists rated alcohol the most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.

According to the scale, devised by a group of scientists including Britain's Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and an expert adviser to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), heroin and crack cocaine rank as the second and third most harmful drugs.

Ecstasy is only an eighth as harmful as alcohol, according to the scientists' analysis.

Professor David Nutt, chairman of the ISCD, whose work was published in the Lancet medical journal, said the findings showed that "aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy."

He said they also showed that current drug classification systems had little relation to the evidence of harm.

Alcohol and tobacco are legal for adults in Britain and many other countries, while drugs such as ecstasy and cannabis and LSD are often illegal and carry the threat of prison sentences.

"It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," Nutt, who was formerly head of the influential British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said in a statement about the study.

Nutt was forced to quit the ACMD a year ago after publicly criticizing ministers for ignoring scientific advice suggesting cannabis was less harmful than alcohol.

The World Health Organization estimates that risks linked to alcohol cause 2.5 million deaths a year from heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides and cancer -- accounting for 3.8 percent of all deaths. It is the third leading risk factor for premature death and disabilities worldwide.

In an effort to offer a guide to policy makers in health, policing, and social care, Nutt's team rated drugs using a technique called multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) which assessed damage according to nine criteria on harm to the user and seven criteria on harm to others.

Harms to the user included things such as drug-specific or drug-related death, damage to health, drug dependence and loss of relationships, while harms to others included crime, environmental damage, family conflict, international damage, economic cost, and damage to community cohesion.

Drugs were then scored out of 100, with 100 given to the most harmful drug and zero indicating no harm at all.

The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72, followed by heroin with 55 and crack with 54.

Among some of the other drugs assessed were crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine or speed (23), cannabis (20), benzodiazepines, such as Valium (15), ketamine (15), methadone (14), mephedrone (13), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7) and magic mushrooms (5).

Yahoo URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101101/ts_nm/us_drugs_alcohol

Heroin is the most abusive, hardest to get off drug, easy to die from. Ethanol is now and always will be the most abused and harmful drug, in a sense. You can obtain as much as you want with no problems, violent crime , abuse, rape, car wrecks, neglect, etc. all have ethanol addiction as being an unusually high prevalence rate ( when these things happen, the offender was often been drinking), there is of course the dose relationship, a little alcohol, not bad, things get very bad with more alcohol , especially in social situations. The availability and non stigma of alcohol make it so easy to abuse, people self medicate so much with alcohol.....

[Phi]

alcohol sucks...period

[orangesand]

why do you say that, do you think alcohol is completely bad, moderation is the key

[Phi]

why do you say that, do you think alcohol is completely bad, moderation is the key

i agree with the moderation idea, but the negative physical feelings seem to negate the very short lived buzz. id rather eat a nice meal...im also hoping to follow through on this

[orangesand]

why do you say that, do you think alcohol is completely bad, moderation is the key

i agree with the moderation idea, but the negative physical feelings seem to negate the very short lived buzz. id rather eat a nice meal...im also hoping to follow through on this

if you have a hard time with the bottle, zero drinking, the way to go, social support is important to abstain, if your mates all go to the pub , just have to order pepsi, not easy.....doable

[Phi]

why do you say that, do you think alcohol is completely bad, moderation is the key

i agree with the moderation idea, but the negative physical feelings seem to negate the very short lived buzz. id rather eat a nice meal...im also hoping to follow through on this

if you have a hard time with the bottle, zero drinking, the way to go, social support is important to abstain, if your mates all go to the pub , just have to order pepsi, not easy.....doable

im just saying the physical negative effects are very noticeable now that I focus on healthier activities. I can't say I've done crack or heroin, or that I think that alcohol is worse, but I'm supporting the idea that alcohol is bad and not worth it IMO. It seems nice to do once in a while in moderation but now I think I would rather do other things(like sports)

[GodConsciousness]

or perhaps just water...

Unfortunately, alcohol addiction is pervasive throughout the world and I don't think we really have a clear sense the total impact alcohol is having in many of our lives. It permeates our culture to such an extent that people don't think they are having a "good time" unless alcohol is involved (this is the real success of the alcohol marketing). Just about all of us seem to struggle with this issue in our own lives and in the lives of our family and friends at one point or another.

[orangesand]

Every culture has it own drug of choice, alcohol is a drug that is extremely common worldwide. Not having a negative stigma attached to alcohol(you can just go by it at the corner store), alcohol of course has had a very large negative stigma in the 1920s(in America), we all see how well that went. Some people, it seems cannot control there alcohol intake, 2 and a half men comes to mind or Cheers, where they celebrate alcoholism. Alcohol is acutely bad, ie death from high volume rum, and bad in the long run, liver failure, organ failure.
A rather specific problem with alcohol is that it is a food, food and drug designation can be arbitrary/ dose dependent. A pint of rum can yield half a day's calories needs, so many people get their food from alcohol.

[orangesand]

why do you say that, do you think alcohol is completely bad, moderation is the key

i agree with the moderation idea, but the negative physical feelings seem to negate the very short lived buzz. id rather eat a nice meal...im also hoping to follow through on this

if you have a hard time with the bottle, zero drinking, the way to go, social support is important to abstain, if your mates all go to the pub , just have to order pepsi, not easy.....doable

im just saying the physical negative effects are very noticeable now that I focus on healthier activities. I can't say I've done crack or heroin, or that I think that alcohol is worse, but I'm supporting the idea that alcohol is bad and not worth it IMO. It seems nice to do once in a while in moderation but now I think I would rather do other things.

That's the way to go mate, treating your body well, as opposed to abusing it make one feel so much better.

[Phi]

or perhaps just water...

Unfortunately, alcohol addiction is pervasive throughout the world and I don't think we really have a clear sense the total impact alcohol is having in many of our lives. It permeates our culture to such an extent that people don't think they are having a "good time" unless alcohol is involved (this is the real success of the alcohol marketing). Just about all of us seem to struggle with this issue in our own lives and in the lives of our family and friends at one point or another.

I fully agree with that; I think alcohol just acts as an overall weight to a person's potential. People can still be decent, respectable, successful, good, or (insert positive attribute here)...but I firmly believe that they would be a little better without it(especially for physical health).

With all that said, I enjoy the company of people who drink...and I still drink

[Phi]

Every culture has it own drug of choice, alcohol is a drug that is extremely common worldwide. Not having a negative stigma attached to alcohol(you can just go by it at the corner store), alcohol of course has had a very large negative stigma in the 1920s(in America), we all see how well that went. Some people, it seems cannot control there alcohol intake, 2 and a half men comes to mind or Cheers, where they celebrate alcoholism. Alcohol is acutely bad, ie death from high volume rum, and bad in the long run, liver failure, organ failure.
A rather specific problem with alcohol is that it is a food, food and drug designation can be arbitrary/ dose dependent. A pint of rum can yield half a day's calories needs, so many people get their food from alcohol.

Seems like alcohol is useful to keep people complacent; getting caloric needs from alcohol doesn't seem like a great idea

[orangesand]

Every culture has it own drug of choice, alcohol is a drug that is extremely common worldwide. Not having a negative stigma attached to alcohol(you can just go by it at the corner store), alcohol of course has had a very large negative stigma in the 1920s(in America), we all see how well that went. Some people, it seems cannot control there alcohol intake, 2 and a half men comes to mind or Cheers, where they celebrate alcoholism. Alcohol is acutely bad, ie death from high volume rum, and bad in the long run, liver failure, organ failure.
A rather specific problem with alcohol is that it is a food, food and drug designation can be arbitrary/ dose dependent. A pint of rum can yield half a day's calories needs, so many people get their food from alcohol.

Seems like alcohol is useful to keep people complacent; getting caloric needs from alcohol doesn't seem like a great idea

things would probably be better without drinking, tobacco and caffeine, these are America's big three and seemily everywhere on goes in the world people smoke and drink tea/coffee.

[orangesand]

what do you mean by complacent? do you mean give them a drug so people won't look for others?

[orangesand]

or perhaps just water...

Unfortunately, alcohol addiction is pervasive throughout the world and I don't think we really have a clear sense the total impact alcohol is having in many of our lives. It permeates our culture to such an extent that people don't think they are having a "good time" unless alcohol is involved (this is the real success of the alcohol marketing). Just about all of us seem to struggle with this issue in our own lives and in the lives of our family and friends at one point or another.

I fully agree with that; I think alcohol just acts as an overall weight to a person's potential. People can still be decent, respectable, successful, good, or (insert positive attribute here)...but I firmly believe that they would be a little better without it(especially for physical health).

With all that said, I enjoy the company of people who drink...and I still drink

I think I have rather the same sentiment , I always noticed that when I don't drink but the others around me do that you notice how silly/destructive the drinkers are being.

[Anne`s fine]

why do you say that, do you think alcohol is completely bad, moderation is the key

i agree with the moderation idea, but the negative physical feelings seem to negate the very short lived buzz. id rather eat a nice meal...im also hoping to follow through on this

if you have a hard time with the bottle, zero drinking, the way to go, social support is important to abstain, if your mates all go to the pub , just have to order pepsi, not easy.....doable

im just saying the physical negative effects are very noticeable now that I focus on healthier activities. I can't say I've done crack or heroin, or that I think that alcohol is worse, but I'm supporting the idea that alcohol is bad and not worth it IMO. It seems nice to do once in a while in moderation but now I think I would rather do other things(like sports)

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