New Study

[rubywillow]

Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine - Welcome to Charter.net

LONDON (AP) — Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.

Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.

Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.

The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet.

Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them.

"Just think about what happens (with alcohol) at every football game," said Wim van den Brink, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Amsterdam. He was not linked to the study and co-authored a commentary in the Lancet.

When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin.

But experts said it would be impractical and incorrect to outlaw alcohol.

"We cannot return to the days of prohibition," said Leslie King, an adviser to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and one of the study's authors. "Alcohol is too embedded in our culture and it won't go away."

King said countries should target problem drinkers, not the vast majority of people who indulge in a drink or two. He said governments should consider more education programs and raising the price of alcohol so it isn't as widely available.

Experts said the study should prompt countries to reconsider how they classify drugs. For example, last year in Britain, the government increased its penalties for the possession of marijuana. One of its senior advisers, David Nutt - the lead author on the Lancet study - was fired after he criticized the British decision.

"What governments decide is illegal is not always based on science," said van den Brink. He said considerations about revenue and taxation, like those garnered from the alcohol and tobacco industries, may influence decisions about which substances to regulate or outlaw.

"Drugs that are legal cause at least as much damage, if not more, than drugs that are illicit," he said.

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[Guest]

New Study

I believe other reports have come to the same conclusions in the past, but they were quashed by the government as they would be detrimental to the wealthy brewing industry - whom I've heard provide a lot of funding for some political parties.

If you take into account how many arguments, emotional messes people have whilst under the influence(and I don't mean those with a problem necessarily), then alcohol has massive wide ranging effects on society as a whole.

BUT

It's legal and part of a huge industry.

Alcohol was also my 'gateway' drug. You know when folk label cannabis with this, well I only ever wanted to take drugs when I was drinking - in order to get a better high or continue drinking longer. Funnily enough alcohol services receive(or did when I last looked 3 years back) only 1/5th of the funding that goes towards treatment for drug problems.

Makes you think - do the government not want people AL free?

Nah that would be a conspiracy.

[aspman]

New Study

so true, they(gov) are damed if they do(ban/remove)AL, and they are double damed if they dont...
i dont think its too late however. look at slavery...gonski for the most part.

[Anjicia]

New Study

Just heard of ths on the news tonight but other reports have been done before but nothing has changed.

[Topsy-Turvy-Tracy]

New Study

Mixed feelings. When my kid bro was suffering from cancer and undergoing full-on, as-bad-as-it-gets chemo, I talked to a family friend about getting him some MJ. Ironically, it is legal in our state and was even then, it was just an impossible process to go through for someone who really needed it. I was hoping that the MJ would help him with pain (bone cancer is the absolute worst) and maybe help him eat. What it did do was help him sleep. By that point, he was very thin, even with tube feedings, and even OTC sleep meds would knock him unconscious. The prescription stuff kept him out for 18 hours. With the MJ, he slept normally - didn't wake from the nerve pain (which the morphine didn't handle) - and woke up feeling fairly good. It didn't do everything I wanted it to do, but what it did mattered. And, if he'd have asked me to get heroin because he thought it would make him feel better, I would have tried.

I don't think prohibition is the answer. That just drives everything underground and creates complicated and expensive law enforcement and incarceration problems.

I don't know what the answer is.

[Guest]

New Study

I don't think prohibition is the answer either, however something could be done to stop promoting alcohol as so 'normal' and 'acceptable'. It's about time it got the respect it deserves so those suffering from addiction can stop being so judged, and typecast.

[mama bear]

New Study

UK, I am so glad to see you posting.
Like you, I only do wacky stuff when drinking. I only hurt myself when drinking. I only drive into mailboxes and garage doors when drinking.
This study does not surprise me at all, but I have no idea what the answer is either.

[rubywillow]

New Study

It's not prohobition. Even the study says that won't work. We have allowed special interest groups and their money to buy the votes we make. With solitious ads, and holier-than-thou attitude toward the tide of human suffering they propagate. Like tobacco in the US, we have to lobby, hold accountable, those we send to office. They, like Hollywood, live in a bubble. And their constant troubles are spashed across the front pages. Somehow they think they have a better 'understanding', and their celebrity status lets them use it. But it's those we elect we need to focus on. Demand better education, better treatment, tax the product to make it harder to get. Make retaliation by employers and insurance against the law. And treatment instead of jail the norm.
I know these are just my opinions. Just one person. But each person has to take a stand, or nothing changes. I've heard alcohol called the last legal drug. It is. And it's killing people.
Sorry, sorry, for my soap box!! But we, the ones who understand, have more at stake, and can share the true destruction. We cannot continue to be apathetic.