Science Daily have published an article highlighting the very real facts about drugs and the harm they cause to users as well as society.
A new system that ranks a wide number of drugs on the basis of harm caused to both the user and society has placed alcohol as the most harmful drug out there, well above heroin and crack cocaine. The scale, which was developed by a panel of drug experts and led by Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London, is published online in The Lancet.
The results were showing that alcohol was the most harmful drug (overall harm score of (72), with heroin (55) and crack cocaine (54) following in second and third places. Drugs such as heroin, crack, and crystal meth were the most harmful drugs to the actual user, while on the other hand alcohol, heroin, and crack were the most harmful to the society.
The other drugs that were studied in terms of overall harm were as follows: Crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco/cigarettes (26), amphetamine/speed (23), cannabis (20), GHB (18), benzodiazepines (eg valium) (15), ketamine (15), methadone (14), mephedrone (13), butane (10), khat (9), ecstacy/MDMA (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7), buprenorphine (6) and magic mushrooms/psilocybin (5).
The results based on the new ISCD MCDA modelling showed that as well as being the most harmful drug in total, alcohol is virtually three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco. The results also demonstrated that alcohol is more than five times more harmful than the drug mephedrone, which was at one stage referred to as a legal high in the UK before it became a class B controlled drug in April of 2010. Ecstasy, which has had much harm-related media attention over the past two decades, is only one eighth as harmful as alcohol in this new analysis.
Reports such as these make you clearly see the dangers that come with consumption of legal substances. Just because you can buy it easily from a store, does not make it safe, let alone healthy.
While I personally see nothing wrong with having a glass of wine or beer with dinner, a large number of people out there do have a real drinking problem. Hopefully this article can set some facts straight, once and for all.
Your friend,
Alex
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Dave says
That’s why I stopped drinking a while back. Cheers.
You should try stop drinking for 1 month, t’s hard but totally worth it. Dry July or Sober September or even Dry December haha
Alcohol is poison, especially wen you abuse it. Hangover is a sure sign it’s toxic.
Alex