Alcohol 'more dangerous than heroin' and crack cocaine

read all about it

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101101/tuk-alcohol-more-dangerous-than-heroin-dba1618.html

yeah but that study was conducted by a Nutt :)

The difficulty with these studies is that it is the total amount consumed over a standard human lifetime (~70 years) that matters in terms of toxicology.
Back in the late 80's, Ames compared known carcinogen response in small mammals and then calculated the human exposure of the same substances over a 'standard human lifetime'. Calculated this way, ethanol is highly ranked, just below occupational exposure to know carcinogens. Here is an updated link:

http://potency.berkeley.edu/pdfs/herp.pdf

Articles like that are the perfect arguement for not legalizing drugs.

I enjoy the occasional drink, and occasionally (like at this weekends Halloween party) get drunk. From everything I've heard about heroin, crack, and meth, I'm not sure I would have the willpower to shoot up socially. To me that indicates that heroin is more dangerous, and if legalized would prove more harmful to society as a whole.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/11/01/alcohol-illicit-drugs.html
Overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower. The study was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet
This is the Lancet we are talking about not some rag-tag blog. :o
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61462-6/fulltext

This report is not saying that Alcohol is more dangerous to an individual, its saying that alcohol is more dangerous to society as a whole. Big difference.

Is that due to most drug addicts are at home while people with booze in them are behind the wheel or other dumb stuff?

I wonder how the opponents/proponents for the legalization/decriminalization of cannabis view this report?

I am surprised cocaine and cannabis have very similar "harm to others" ratings. Most proponents point out (incorrectly IMO) that cannabis is rarely linked to organized crime.

I say make it all legal and then tax the hell out of it, just like alcohol and cigarettes.

Use the billions they save on police officers towards helping kids in high risk areas.

Personally I think education, acceptance and help go a lot further than prohibition and more jails but that's a whole different thread!

Alchohol more dangerous than crack
The original headline reads, "Alcohol 'more dangerous than heroin'." I think that is also a mis-statement. It should read, "Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin'."

It has long been known that heroin can be less harmful than alcohol. Most people can function quite normally taking moderate amounts of heroin. The *BIG* problem is that it is illegal. Illegal sources of heroin are often impure. They can be laced with or substituted with more dangerous and more addictive drugs. They can also be laced with poison, are often sold in dangerous environments and used in unsanitary conditions which leads to injury, disease and death from things like hepatitis, aids and violent crime. High prices, caused by heroin's illegal status also leads to property and personal crime. Britain leads the way in heroin addition management by providing a safe supply of heroin to proven addicts. (Not that I advocate getting addicted and moving to Britain to obtain a supply.) I'm not advocating heroin use, just better management of heroin addiction. There are much better pain killers available now but they can also be addictive (and are severely restricted.)

Note that the article says that, "heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, to be the most lethal to individuals" and "considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the most dangerous." Crack is extremely addictive and has almost immediate personal and social side effects. Use cannot be sustained for long due to the high price and amount consumed. If crack was used as widely and for the length of time that alcohol is, it's effects would be off the chart. Alcohol is more devastating due to wide spread, long term abuse. That can be worse due to social acceptance of long term alcohol abuse in some social groups. Heroin is somewhere in between. Methamphetamine can be extremely harmful to individuals physically.

It also goes on to say, "Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower." Considering that these are all "social" drugs that are generally used in social environments and widely accepted among some social groups, why are they illegal and not alcohol? Prohibition did not work for alcohol and it certainly isn't working for these either. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD are also far less addictive than drugs like cocaine and opiates. Marijuana is estimated to be be accepted by and used (at some time in their lives) by over 50% of the US population. Yet it remains a political hot button in US federal politics. I would guess that marijuana decriminalization in Canada was derailed by pressure from the US. Not that I'm advocating marijuana use but it certainly should not carry the penalties that it does.

Conspicuously absent is tobacco. I would say that marijuana probably less harmful individually than tobacco. Tobacco probably ranks as high as alcohol for physical devastation from long term abuse. Tobacco is also extremely addictive, as addictive as crack cocaine for many individuals. Yet drugs such as tobacco and alcohol remain legal for sale.

THANK YOU, ScaryBob, for addressing the social issues surrounding these drugs. I have a difficult time believing the professor "analysed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body as well as other factors like environmental and socio-economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison. Headlines & articles like this one are utter garbage.

If I'm to believe this article, it's more dangerous for me to go to a pub to watch the game with my buddies than to hang out in a crackhouse.

Or it is just a headline and you should feel compelled to read the report. The CBC article actually stated "Alcohol ranked most harmful drug".

Check out the book "The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains" by Nicholas Carr to see what I am talking about.