Ensure that alcohol abuse is worse than illicit drugs
They measured the effects they cause on the environment, in addition to the damage to health.
Alcohol is the most dangerous drug and by a considerable margin. Leave behind heroin and crack, according to a study published in the scientific journal The Lancet. Much further back, is the cocaine.
The study of a former British government drug advisor and colleagues of an Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. He argues that if the drugs were classified on the basis of the actual damage they cause, alcohol would occupy the first place.
The work analyzes nine categories of harm that drugs can cause the individual and seven types of damage that can cause to third parties. The maximum percentage of damage was 100 and the minimum of 0. The final score of the combination of all the variables.
The nine categories of damage to the body were: mortality by direct cause of consumption, mortality derived from consumption, direct harm by the cause of consumption, dependence on consumption, dependence, mental disability due to consumption, loss of perception capacities, damage to personal relationships and injuries
The seven categories of damage to the others were: crime, family conflict, damage to the surrounding environment, damage to society as a whole, economic cost and deterioration of community cohesion.
In total, alcohol had a percentage of 72 - in contrast to 55 for heroin, 54 for crack and almost triple with cocaine (27) -. It was concluded that heroin, crack and methamphetamine are the most dangerous drugs for the individual user. On the other hand, when contemplating the social variable, the most harmful are alcohol, heroin and crack, in that order (see "The list ..." at the bottom of the page).
"Our findings confirm previous work carried out in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which corroborate that current drug classification systems have little relationship with the evidence on damages, and also agree with the background of previous reports of specialists, which they estimate to be targeted. Energetically, the harm caused by alcohol is a valid and necessary public health strategy, "the study authors wrote.
Nutt said it was not a new classification system "depending on what kind of damage". But if the damage is total, alcohol, heroin and crack are then clearly more harmful than all other drugs. That is why the drugs with a percentage of 40 or more can be Class A, between 20 and 30 Class B; between 10 and 19 Class C and between 10 and 10 Class D. "This makes tobacco considered a Class B drug next to cocaine, marijuana also Class B, instead of C. And Ecstasy and LSD end in the lowest category, D.
This, beyond scientific trade, is also a challenge for the British government to deal with the sensitive issue of harm related to legal and illegal drugs. In fact, Nutt had been fired last year for questioning the ministers' refusal to follow the recommendations of the Advisory Council on Drug Abuse (official body) that he chaired.
The new study was conducted by Nutt in 2007, sparking a debate for suggesting that alcohol and tobacco - available and legal - were more dangerous than marijuana and LSD. In that report, alcohol ranked fifth in danger. And there is a classification of the drug classification system, but critics questioned the criteria used to make the classification.
The list of the worst
1- Alcohol (72).
2- Heroin (55).
3- Crack (54).
4- Methamphetamine (33).
5- Cocaine (27).
6- Tobacco (26).
7- Amphetamines (23).
8- Cannabis (20).
9- Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (18).
10- Benzodiazepines (15).
11- Quetamine (15).
12- Methadone (14).
13- Mephedrone (13).
14- Butane (10).
15- Khat (9).
16- Ecstasy (9).
17- Steroids (9).
18- LSD (7).
19- Buprenorphine (6).
20- Mushrooms
76%. It is the prevalence of alcohol consumption in the population between 16 and 65 years old, according to INDEC figures.
