Alcohol and tobacco are deadlier than ecstasy, report warns

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/smoking/Story ... 44,00.html


Alcohol and tobacco are deadlier than ecstasy, report warns


Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday March 4, 2007
The Observer

The government is to be urged to consider a controversial plan to reclassify drugs according to the harm they do. The new ranking system would see alcohol placed high on the scale because of its links to violence and car accidents. Tobacco, estimated to cause 40 per cent of all hospital illnesses, would also come before the class-A drug ecstasy.

However, there is no suggestion that alcohol and tobacco should be banned. The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce's commission on illegal drugs, communities and public policy has been examining what it believes is a 'serious misfit between the law relating to drugs and the way in which drugs are actually used by members of society'.

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The commission, which includes John Yates, the Metropolitan Police's assistant commissioner, has heard evidence from experts and charities in a bid to find ways of making the UK's drugs laws more effective.

It has highlighted a study carried out by a team led by Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, that suggests classification should not be linked to penalties for drug possession but rather the relative risks involved in taking them.

The study of 20 drugs - both legal and illegal - weighed up their physical harm, their relative addictiveness and the impact they have on wider society, to produce a new 'rational' league table.

Blakemore suggests current drugs laws are outdated. 'The system has evolved in an unsystematic way from somewhat arbitrary foundations with seemingly little scientific basis. We suggest a new system for evaluating the risks of individual drugs that is based as far as possible on facts and scientific knowledge. It could form the basis of a new classification scheme for the Misuse of Drugs Act.'

The Drugs league table
Drugs assessed in order of danger

1 Heroin

2 Cocaine

3 Barbiturates

4 Street methadone

5 Alcohol

6 Ketamine

7 Benzodiazepine

8 Amphetamines

9 Tobacco

10 Buprenorphine

11 Cannabis

12 Solvents

13 4-MTA

14 LSD

15 Methylphenidate

16 Anabolic steroids

17 GHB

18 Ecstasy

19 Alkyl nitrates

20 Khat

To be honest, I'm surprised that tobacco is further down on the list than alcohol. I've always thought that alcohol was less dangerous than tobacco. My mom drinks alcohol and she's not suffering from any major health problems. My aunt was a smoker and she died of lung cancer at age 55. My grandma was a smoker too, and she's had stuff like heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms etc. up until her death a few years ago.

More drugs hysteria.

Wonder what the difference between methadone and 'Street methadone' is.

I've heard strychnine is quite deadly.
Not in the top20. Maybe next year.

The list seems a bit off with only one opiate on it unless you count "street methadone" as one. It also lists Amphetamines fairly far down and solvents way down both of which really screw you up

Yes it's hysteria, but in a positive way. It shows how oudated the current system we have. I've seen a lot more drunk people get in fights than people on pills for example.

I've been in pubs that seem far more intimidating where everyone has had too many drinks, and then a fight happens. I hardly ever see a fight at raves where everyone is loved up and harmless as flies.

Tobacco is more dangerous than any of them.

Although I applaud them for trying to update the laws, IMO the drugs are still completely out of order. Benzodiazepenes (aka Valium) is more dangerous than speed and tobacco? They're all on drugs. Argh.

I think street methadone is different from methadone you get from a rehab place or pharmacy in that it might have been adulterated. Methadone, by the way, is a really dangerous drug - it needs to be eradicated from the planet. It has caused much more harm than good - might as well just stay on heroin. (This is based on my experience as a nurse at a drug rehab place, and of course, is just my opinion)

4-MTA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-MTA
Same hyperthermia risk as MDMA.


14 LSD non-toxic but i guess a few people do crazy things and harm themselves anyway

Prohibition just doesn't work. If people want drugs, they will do it.

Better to have them legalised and be pure and safe, not cut with nasty impurities that the gangs do.

New Zealand leads the way with this, you can buy legal ecstasy equivalents there.

I say let them. Why not? The amount of problems you get with violent, drunk people is enormous yet there are no moves to ban having a good old pint (or ten) are they?

In that case I guess will switch from alcohol to ecstasy. Break my alcolism with a less dangerous drug.

The issue with drug use is that idiots take too much of anything and get the associated behaviour problems/healt issues. I know plenty of people who've done various things for years. They have good jobs, good friends, even families. They are perfectly normal people leading normal lives who just want a bit of enjoyment.

All prohibition does is allow criminals gangs to make a living, people get shot, people get put in prison etc.

In fact it's quite worrying that somebody can get the same time in prison for just taking a few pills, not harming anyone, as scumbags who mug people and even murder. But then a hell of a lot of muggings happen because the person wants to fund a drugs habit because they can get them only illegally.

80% of crime is caused by drugs being illegal, is there not a simple answer?

In the 18th and 19th centuries, drug use was widespread in Western society. Many subtances were legal like opium and cocaine.

It's the sensible majority that have to suffer because a few idiots demonised the whole lot from the early 20th century onwards, and a few idiots never know when to stop and cause the authorities to clamp down.

For example in America in the 20s they even tried to ban alcohol, like that's really going to ever work?!

Human beings and indeed other animals have been taking psycoactive substances since they evolved. Look at many tribes in the world, taking psychedelic drugs is a major part of shamanism and animanistic beliefs.

Don't think ecstacy will 'cure' alcoholism.

Alcohol is the most addictive of drugs. Heroin may be number 1 on the above list, but many ex-heroin addicts turn to booze. They will tell you which is harder to get off.

Timothy Leary expounded LSD as an alcoholism cure (and cure for other pyschological disorders.)
He got over 40 years for his ideas.
Rather harsh i think; but goes to show how much money is made in taxes from the legal drugs, and also who really runs the US.

Has anybody seen this website Before Prohibition it has some interesting photos of the products around in the late 1800's
Drugs where in everything

Some people would enjoy going back in time for 100 years.
The days of legal laudanum.

It was not uncommon for babies to be given a tincture of morphine or heroin to keep them quiet if they crying too much.
Sounds barbaric now, but was actually proscribed by the experts at the time.
Makes you think what is being proscribed nowadays which will be looked at in the same manner in 100 years to come.
Ritalin anyone?

I could not find a picture but at the sane time you could order herion from a
Sears & Roebuck catalog.


http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botany ... index.html

$4.85 per ounce.
Thats probably a massive amount of money for the time.
I don't know how to work out the inflation, but i would estimate the price of an ounce of heroin to be around $1500. I reckon $4.85 was worth a bit more in them days.
Probably why they state an effective dose as being 1/48 gr. = 1/1344oz.

Happy daze.