Pubdate: Tue, 02 Nov 2010
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2010 Reuters
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Kate Kelland, Reuters

ALCOHOL DOES MORE HARM THAN CRACK: STUDY

LONDON - Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than crack and heroin when
the combined harms to the user and others are assessed, British
scientists said yesterday.

Presenting a new scale of drug harm, the scientists rated alcohol the
most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or
tobacco.

According to the scale, devised by a group of scientists including
Britain's Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and an
expert advisor to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs & Drug
Addiction, heroin and crack cocaine rank as the second-and third-most
harmful drugs.

Ecstasy is only an eighth as harmful as alcohol, according to their
analysis.

Professor David Nutt, chairman of the ISCD, whose work was published
in The Lancet medical journal, said the findings showed "aggressively
targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy."

They also showed current drug classification systems had little
relation to the evidence of harm.

Alcohol and tobacco are legal for adults in Britain and many other
countries, while drugs such as Ecstasy, cannabis and LSD are often
illegal and users risk prison sentences.

"It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed --alcohol
and tobacco--score in the upper segment of the ranking scale,
indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal
substances," added Mr. Nutt, formerly head of the influential British
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

He was forced to quit the council a year ago after publicly
criticizing ministers for ignoring scientific advice suggesting
cannabis was less harmful than alcohol.

The World Health Organization estimates risks linked to alcohol cause
2.5 million deaths a year from heart and liver disease, road
accidents, suicides and cancer, or 3.8% of all deaths. It is the
third-leading risk factor for premature death and disabilities worldwide.

Mr. Nutt's team rated drugs using a technique called multicriteria
decision analysis, which assessed damage according to nine criteria on
harm to the user and seven criteria on harm to others.

Harms to the user included things such as drug-specific or
drug-related death, damage to health, drug dependence and loss of
relationships, while harms to others included crime, environmental
damage, family conflict, international damage, economic cost and
damage to community cohesion.

Drugs were scored out of 100, with 100 given to the most harmful and
zero indicating no harm at all.

The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72,
followed by heroin (55) and crack (54).

Among some of the other drugs assessed were crystal meth (33), cocaine
(27) and tobacco (26). 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake