Lifestyle

TOPICS:

3/25/07
3/25/07
3/21/07

Previous

PAGE: 

1 ... 

58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62

 ... 882

Next

OneWithAll

OneWithAll

Charlton City, MA
October 2005

MAR 24, 2007 09:19 AM

not that you didn't already know that

Article:
Alcohol, tobacco make top 10 list of risky drugs
British study rated the substances more dangerous than marijuana, Ecstasy



Research recently published in the medical journal The Lancet rates the most dangerous drugs (starting with the worst) as follows:

1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines
8. Amphetamine
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

LONDON - New "landmark" research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.

In research published Friday in The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain's Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society. Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.

Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug's potential for addiction and the impact on society of drug use. The researchers asked two groups of experts _ psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise _ to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD.

Nutt and his colleagues then calculated the drugs' overall rankings. In the end, the experts agreed with each other _ but not with the existing British classification of dangerous substances.

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.

'Current drug system is ill thought-out'
According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and Ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain's drug classification system.

"The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary," said Nutt, referring to the United Kingdom's practice of assigning drugs to three distinct divisions, ostensibly based on the drugs' potential for harm. "The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary," write Nutt and his colleagues in The Lancet.

Tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.

Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs _ including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol _ should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt's study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities.

"This is a landmark paper," said Dr. Leslie Iversen, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University. Iversen was not connected to the research. "It is the first real step towards an evidence-based classification of drugs." He added that based on the paper's results, alcohol and tobacco could not reasonably be excluded.

"The rankings also suggest the need for better regulation of the more harmful drugs that are currently legal, i.e. tobacco and alcohol," wrote Wayne Hall, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, in an accompanying Lancet commentary. Hall was not involved with Nutt's paper.

While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.

Nutt called for more education so that people were aware of the risks of various drugs. "All drugs are dangerous," he said. "Even the ones people know and love and use every day."


source

kingoftown

kingoftown

Cleveland, OH
October 2005

MAR 24, 2007 10:05 AM

interesting.

Margot_Dent

Margot_Dent

Los Angeles, CA
February 2004

MAR 24, 2007 10:11 AM

theres no WAY pot is more dangerous than ecstasy and steroids

SirPsychoSexy

SirPsychoSexy

Ridgewood, NJ
January 2004

MAR 24, 2007 10:41 AM

They should have released this list on Letterman.

Bastardo

Bastardo

Boston, MA
January 2005

MAR 24, 2007 10:47 AM

Pot actually made the list?

Bastardo

Bastardo

Boston, MA
January 2005

MAR 24, 2007 10:51 AM

Also buprenorphine, funnily enough, is used to treat heroin addictions. O irony, you do know how to cook up a hit.

Flux

Flux

SUICIDEGIRL

North Carolina, USA

MAR 24, 2007 10:56 AM

Bastardo said:
Pot actually made the list?



I think that probably has more to do with the most common delivery method, inhaling burning organic matter, than with THC itself.

Bastardo

Bastardo

Boston, MA
January 2005

MAR 24, 2007 10:57 AM

Flux said:

Bastardo said:
Pot actually made the list?



I think that probably has more to do with the most common delivery method, inhaling burning organic matter, than with THC itself.



I tell my pot head friends that this is what makes smoking pot so bad for them but they just laugh and run off to buy chips and candy.

_DictionaryGirl_

_DictionaryGirl_

NEWSWIRE

San Diego, CA

MAR 24, 2007 11:03 AM

Bastardo said:
Also buprenorphine, funnily enough, is used to treat heroin addictions. O irony, you do know how to cook up a hit.



*rimshot*

mamet

mamet

Charleston, SC
March 2005

MAR 24, 2007 11:51 AM

Margot_Dent said:
theres no WAY pot is more dangerous than ecstasy and steroids



That was my exact thought upon seeing the list.

Syrrys

Syrrys

Chicago, IL
October 2004

MAR 24, 2007 01:29 PM

Flux said:
I think that probably has more to do with the most common delivery method, inhaling burning organic matter, than with THC itself.



I actually went and got myself an account on "The Lancet" website (where the actual study was published) yesterday to check this out... And that's exactly it. Also influenced intravenous drugs getting such a high rating... HIV sucks.

Apparently "social harms" were part of the calculation as well. ie lack of motivation can screw up your life pretty bad.

They were also looking at the drugs themselves, rather than all the scary contaminants/cuts that can really fuck you up.

Such a procedure would not give a valid indication of harm for a drug that has extreme acute toxicity, such as the designer drug contaminant MPTP (1-methyl 4-phenyl 1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine), a single dose of which can damage the substantia nigra of the basal ganglia so severely that it induces an extreme form of Parkinson's disease.

adjunct

adjunct

Philadelphia, PA
July 2002

MAR 24, 2007 01:49 PM

Syrrys said:
Apparently "social harms" were part of the calculation as well. ie lack of motivation can screw up your life pretty bad.


It's more complex than that, though. Hopefully this link to the ranking itself actually works.

Also interesting:

However, [alcohol and tobacco] also generate tax revenue that can offset their health costs to some extent. [....] For drugs that have only recently become popular-- eg, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, better known as ecstasy or MDMA-- the longer-term health and social consequences can be estimated only from animal toxicology at present. Of course, the overall use of a drug has a substantial bearing on the extent of social harm.


So I'd say the summary given in the OP is off base.

Mr_Mocata

Mr_Mocata

United Kingdom
OLD SKOOL

MAR 24, 2007 02:05 PM

I'm surprised that amphetamine ranks above tobacco.

Its also kind of interesting that methylphenidate (ie Ritalin) is on the list because this drug gets very widely prescribed to children for treatment of attention deficit disorder. If someone were to suggest giving anabolic steroids or ecstasy to children, there would be public outcry and a lynching mob would soon appear on the scene. Its funny to think that this study rates methylphenidate as being more dangerous than ecstasy or anabolic steroids.

dem_z

dem_z

United Kingdom
June 2004

MAR 24, 2007 04:19 PM

Bastardo said:
Pot actually made the list?



mamet said:

Margot_Dent said:
theres no WAY pot is more dangerous than ecstasy and steroids



That was my exact thought upon seeing the list.



There are lots of studies showing the cannabis can be harmful to mental health. The causal link isn't so clear yet.

Pot fucks up some people who are vulnerable
Pot fucks up some people who are make themselves vulnerable by how much they smoke.
Pot might fuck up some people who aren't vulnerable, even if they only smoke moderately.

SockPuppet

SockPuppet

I'm lost
July 2006

MAR 24, 2007 04:56 PM

Hm. No comments about the effect of pot on reflex time, and therefore driver safety?

adjunct

adjunct

Philadelphia, PA
July 2002

MAR 24, 2007 05:17 PM

SockPuppet said:
Hm. No comments about the effect of pot on reflex time, and therefore driver safety?


I believe that would fall under social harm.

MetaTag

MetaTag

United Kingdom
September 2002

MAR 25, 2007 08:09 AM

SockPuppet said:
Hm. No comments about the effect of pot on reflex time, and therefore driver safety?



The most obvious effect of the cannabis was that the volunteers drove more slowly, trying to compensate for intoxication by being more cautious.

The volunteers also found it difficult to follow a figure-of-eight loop of road when given a high dose of cannabis.

However, reaction times to motorway hazards were not significantly affected.

Trials previously completed under similar test conditions at the TRL have shown that alcohol and tiredness have a more adverse effect on driving ability.



Source