Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin'

[Yeti101]

Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet.

The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the government in October 2009.

It ranks 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society.

Tobacco and cocaine are judged to be equally harmful, while ecstasy and LSD are among the least damaging. Prof Nutt refused to leave the drugs debate when he was sacked from his official post by the former Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson.

He went on to form the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, a body which aims to investigate the drug issue without any political interference.

One of its other members is Dr Les King, another former government advisor who quit over Prof Nutt's treatment.

Classification system

Members of the group, joined by two other experts, scored each drug for harms including mental and physical damage, addiction, crime and costs to the economy and communities.

The modelling exercise concluded that heroin, crack and methylamphetamine were the most harmful drugs to individuals, but alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the most harmful to others.

“If you take overall harm, then alcohol, heroin and crack are clearly more harmful than all others” Prof David Nutt Former UK chief drugs adviser

When the scores for both types of harm were added together, alcohol emerged as the most harmful drug, followed by heroin and crack.

The findings run contrary to the government's long-established drug classification system, but the paper's authors argue that their system - based on the consensus of experts - provides an accurate assessment of harm for policy makers.

"Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm," the paper says.

"They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy."

In 2007, Prof Nutt and colleagues undertook a limited attempt to create a harm ranking system, sparking controversy over the criteria and the findings.

Legal high

The new more complex system ranked alcohol three times more harmful as cocaine or tobacco. Ecstasy was ranked as causing one-eighth the harm of alcohol.

It also contradicted the Home Office's decision to make so-called legal high mephedrone a Class B drug, saying that alcohol was five times more harmful. The rankings have been published to coincide with a conference on drugs policy, organised by Prof Nutt's committee.

Prof Nutt said: "What a new classification system might look like would depend on what set of harms to self or others, you are trying to reduce.

"But if you take overall harm, then alcohol, heroin and crack are clearly more harmful than all others."

The Lancet paper written by Prof Nutt, Dr King and Dr Lawrence Phillips, does not examine the harm caused to users by taking more than one drug at a time.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

[Teotzlcoatl]

I said I mostly agree with his findings. Very nice, thanks for posting!

[nabraxas]

back in the early 80's i saw a show w/3 top surgeons discussing drug abuse.

at one point they were asked who they'd rather be operated on: a heroin user, a heavy drinker or a barbiturate user.

they were unanimous in agreeing that as long as the surgeon was using medical grade heroin there would be literally no way ov telling, & it would be be fine going under his knife, whereas both the drinker & the barbiturate user would have hand tremors caused by those drugs.

[Yeti101]

I'll post the Lancet article here once I have access and will follow up with the ISCD material.

[FancyPants]

Very interesting about their low score on "harm on others" for methamphetamine.

I'd very much like to print off heaps of copies of that graph and post them everywhere.

[Yeti101]

Attached is the main article. This is well worth a read. I'll cross-post it elsewhere as appropriate as well as anything else relevant I can find. The Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs home page is here: http://www.drugscience.org.uk/

Drug Harms_UK.pdf

Drug Harms_UK.pdf

Drug Harms_UK.pdf

[∂an]

yeah Dr Nutt has been a solid, reputable supporter of drug reform in the UK. particularly regarding the downgrading of cannabis to class C in the UK, which resulted in his sacking by the government.

thanks for the pdf - first time I've seen amphetamine spelt amfetamine, but wikipedia tells me this is legit.

[Magicdirt]

It's interesting to see that mushrooms came in as the least harmful of the drugs listed on all of the charts in that study.

One thing the study didn't seem to take in account was mixed modalities of drugs. In my experience a meth head is likely to drink,smoke and take meth all at the same time and sometimes even mix all of that with LSD if the chance presents itself.

I have to agree with the overall results though, it does seem like a fair assessment and it is important work.

Studies like that must present a problem to legislative bodies who are being funding in an indirect way from alcohol taxes, but it's a crazy situation when the drug with worst social impact is legal and less harmful drugs are not.

[FancyPants]

One thing the study didn't seem to take in account was mixed modalities of drugs. In my experience a meth head is likely to drink,smoke and take meth all at the same time and sometimes even mix all of that with LSD if the chance presents itself.

 

I'm actually glad they didn't do that. Much better to keep the singular drugs reviewed on their own based on own regard. The legality of alcohol and breadth of use would sully otherwise far less harmful drugs like mushrooms or ecstasy. Polydrug use is the responsibility of the user.

[Yeti101]

And the polydrug thing cuts both ways. If polydrug use (or even the potential for polydrug use) is a reason to keep meth illegal, then it would also be good reason to rank alcohol as a very highly harmful substance.

The study is much neater and clearer just considering substances in isloation, but I don't believe that a study of polydrug use would be radically different - the negatives of any drug use are going to be exacerbated signifigantly if you add alcohol to the mix.

[Distracted]

Pity the study has no actual scientific backing besides experts opinions which are open to bias. We already vaguely knew their views from reading about what's been happening about Prof. Nutt but now we have a study done in a day outlining them all.

Cheers for the pdf, I agree with most of what's said, but a meth addict is horribly damaging to those around them in my opinion.

[ThunderIdeal]

was at another forum perhaps, where a guy staying in britain said meth hardly exists over there hence the low harm to others score. check out the score for plain amphetamine.

[Yeti101]

I agree, some meth addicts I've had contact with are indeed bad news. But I would say the same of most of the other addicts I've known.

It is interesting that Meth rates so low in 'harm to others'. Intuitively, I would not say that it is the same here in Aus. And that is very interesting because it indicates that the harm to others might be relative to the societal context in which a substance exists, rather than it being somehow inherent to the substance itself.

All that said, both Meth (just behind Crack) is rated as pretty nasty.

The detailed breakdown is worth a look - Meth causes more harm to relationships than almost any other drug surveyed and I think this is reflected in the comments here. Confusingly, 'Loss of relationships' is listed as a harm to the user rather than a 'harm to others' .