Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine

[Kadie]

Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer

Sunday, October 31, 2010

(10-31) 17:08 PDT LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) --

Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.

Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.

Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/31/international/i170209D49.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz13zc2YZXh

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. To quote Gene Wilder in his first scene in "Blazing Saddles".....

"When?"

[laughingliberal]

2. Not one bit surprising, to me. nt

[drmeow]

3. Heroin

as long as it is pure (not cut with other stuff or contaminated) and you get a maintenance dose, is pretty much the cleanest drug you can put in your body. Eventually you stop producing natural endorphins - which SUCKS.

[panader0]

4. Alcohol becomes like an opiate in the liver.

I should have been dead long ago. Instead I am 60, healthy, strong and active. I am a bricklayer, and I think the hard work, even when combined with hard play, helps your body.

[pipi_k]

5. I'm not surprised...for one thing...

it's socially acceptable, which makes it easier to obtain.

And the other thing...a person doesn't necessarily have to be intoxicated for it to do real damage to the liver.

[old mark]

6. In several countries in europe, where heroin is legal, addicts live well into old age...there

are specific retirement complexes for heroin addicted old people in Denmark. It is the fact that these drugs are illegal and not controlled that makes them dangerous to health - you NEVER KNOW what you are really taking.

Alcohol over its entire history has proved extremely deadly because of its effects on human behavior as well as its own toxicity to the body.

I spent years as a drug and alcohol counsellor and lateer worked in a mental hospital, and I am a rcovering alcoholic with over 22 years sober.
I strongly support legalization and control/regulation of most street drugs, especially pot, cocaine and heroin.
Our policy now is pointless, destructive, wasteful and ignorant.

mark

[era veteran]

9. Today is my anniversary, 21 years today.

I would have been dead. I teach classes to servers of alcohol how to serve responsibly. Weed is just fine. I see the opiate addictions way too goddamn much. Scary around here with youthful addictions. Alcohol abuse seems worse now than when I was young although I personally was an all-pro drunk. Alcohol is indeed evil but I think as long as Heroin is illegal it will the worse. Rich junkies with a steady reliable supply can live an average life span. I believe you could add vindictive to your last line. Peace/RFL

[old mark]

12. Vindictive is correct - law enforcement takes a lot of pleasure in fucking with

drug USERS as opposed to the large DEALERS. LEO's, banks, politicians get tons of cash from the big drug importers and dealers to let them do business, and they do not want to lose the income...that is a huge part of the drug "problem" in the US now, as it was in Prohibition.


Congratulations on your anniversary - have a great year!
(You know what the old timers say - You can't get drunk if you don't drink...Christ I gues WE are "old timers" now!
...never occurred to me...)

mark

[Skip Intro]

7. I thought alcohol was good for you in moderation.

damn moderation...

[TexasObserver]

8. recommend

[Teaser]

10. uh, is this scaled for the number of people abusing the drugs?

because alcohol has a much wider user base, due to the fact that it's relatively easy to obtain and inexpensive.

Bet legalized heroin would have comparable, or worse, numbers.

[izzybeans]

15. Yep that's the claim made in the article.

No attempt to control for frequency of use. The prevalence and amount is the problem. All substances we ingest interact with our bodies in varying ways. Good, bad, etc. There will be another study that tells us the opposite about alcohol, which build upon the tradition that tells us its fine in moderation.

Next air will be labeled more dangerous, because everyone who died has breathed that damned thing in.

[REP]

11. In other news, water remains wet

[Duchess]

13. BAN IT!

I wonder why we never thought about this before. We were so blind.

[madokie]

14. I knew this a long long time ago

but war led me to crawl into a bottle and I liked to never had gotten out of it, finally I did and Oh how I wished I'd never gone there.

rec

[Tsiyu]

16. And yet

It's perfectly legal.


Says a lot about humans....about their choices and about whom they wish to punish for those choices...