11 ms·
Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin'
- kevin_morrill 16y agoDrunk driving kills between 15 to 10 thousand people each year in the U.S. That's about 3x the lives lost from 911--every single year.
- qntm 16y agoWhat's your source?
- JoachimSchipper 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_Sta... says "In the United States the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 17,941 people died in 2006 in "alcohol-related" collisions..."
- bjelkeman-again 16y agoHow about: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2004.PDF http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2004.PDF "Specifically, alcohol-related fatalities declined significantly in 2004, to 16,694, the second consecutive year in which alcohol-related fatalities declined."
- lunchbox 16y agoTobacco use kills 443,000 Americans each year. Source: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/ http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/healt... For perspective: http://www.meh.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/meh.ro5415.jpg http://www.meh.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/meh.ro5415.jpg
- acqq 16y agoThat's "1 of every 5 deaths in US due to smoking," I've submitted it now: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1856015 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1856015 Now how is then smoking less harmful than using some other substance? Or is the evaluation skewed somehow?
- Alex3917 16y agoI'm pretty sure that data is about ten years old, but otherwise it's correct. Overall drug use kills about 1 in 3 Americans.
- kevin_morrill 16y agoTobacco at least only kills the person stupid enough to use it. Drunk driving kills thousands of innocent people.
- v21 16y agoStairs kill 12 thousand people per year in the US. That's about 4x the lives lost from 911 -- every single year.
- russellallen 16y agoSo is this an argument for legalizing heroin or for bringing back prohibition?
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoI haven't followed it, but he seems to be trying to open up the debate. Prohibition didn't work out too well, but anti-smoking campaigns in many countries seem to be somewhat effective. So a gentler approach just may work, if you're willing to accept that it probably takes a century before you can ban the substance.
- electromagnetic 16y agoGentler approach? Anti-smoking is reaching prohibition like levels in most countries. You're banned from smoking everywhere to the point you're banned from smoking in your own vehicle if someone else is present regardless of whether or not the passengers smoke themselves. IIRC here in Canada it's illegal to smoke in a work vehicle, it's illegal to smoke in your own vehicle if you have a passenger under 18. You can't smoke within X-feet of a building entrance. They're trying to make it illegal to smoke in your own home if you have anyone under 18 living there. I really don't see this as a gentle approach. I'm a non-smoker, I don't give a crap where people smoke and I see this illegalization of smoking to be severely harmful to our society. Given the link between certain genes and smoking, why not make autism illegal? I mean it's harmful to the users and is harmful to society by costing us billions in unearned wages and medical costs. I'm sick of this nanny state bullshit. At the rate governments are regressing, we will be at full prohibition before we ever see marijuana or LSD legalized.
- rimantas 16y agoGiven the link between certain genes and smoking, why not make autism illegal? All that you listed is to protect others from your smoke — which I very welcome. I don't see how the analogy with autism holds there. And even if you have genes which just force you to smoke, please do so that others who don't posses these genes are not forced to breath your medicine.
- pierrefar 16y agoJust a heads up: there is a bit of politics with this story. The author was the head of the government advisory board that suggested changing the ratings (and thus penalties) of some drugs, but the subject was too dangerous to tackle politically. He criticised the government and got fired. A year later he publishes this report. The Guardian's coverage ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-harmful-than-heroin-crack http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/01/alcohol-more-h... ) knows that this report is likely to be attacked politically (regardless of merit) so it's no surprise they are using adjectives to cut off this attack. Note their use of words like "authoritative" and "respected" early in the article.
- lunchbox 16y agoPDF of Nutt's previous 2007 Lancet review here: http://science.iowamedicalmarijuana.org/pdfs/safety/Nutt%20Rational%20Scale%20Drug%20Harms%20Lancet%202007.pdf http://science.iowamedicalmarijuana.org/pdfs/safety/Nutt%20R... The chart with the ranking is on the 4th page. I can't find the most recent Lancet article mentioned in the article. My concern with these rankings is that they don't seem to control for the number of people using the drug. Alcohol kills more people and has higher social costs largely because it's used by more people. However, for an individual user, crack or heroin is far more harmful than alcohol. So saying "alcohol is more harmful than heroin" might confuse some people. Also, if those drugs were legalized, their use might go up, thereby moving them higher up according to Nutt's rubric. I would like to see a ranking that compares the damage these drugs do to an individual person. For instance, is it worse for your health to get intoxicated on a weekly basis with alcohol, or marijuana?
- swombat 16y agoAlso, if those drugs were legalized, their use might go up, thereby multiplying their negative impact on society. Actually, all available evidence points to the fact that legalising drugs like heroin actually decreases their usage. Would you suddenly take up heroin if it was legal? Do you know anyone who would? This may be one of the scales you're looking for, btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_t... Also, worth pointing out, with respect to "amount of usage", that drugs like Ecstasy see millions of users every weekend... and yet only a handful of deaths per year (generally involving multiple drugs and/or several-days-long binges). A pretty sterling safety record, I'd say.
- lunchbox 16y agoActually, all available evidence points to the fact that legalising drugs like heroin actually decreases their usage. Would you suddenly take up heroin if it was legal? Do you know anyone who would? If marijuana were legal I might use it. Conversely, I don't think I know anyone who uses marijuana/heroin but would stop using it if it were legal. I haven't seen the evidence either way; I just made the point in my original post as something to consider.
- swombat 16y agoHere's some background. Nutt initially released this scale in 2009 and was sacked by the government over it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6894710.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article68947... Several other members of the drugs advisory board resigned in protest. It's a typical case of the government asking scientists to come up with evidence and then refusing to see the evidence when it is presented. "You got us the wrong evidence! Get us another truth!" At the bottom of this article, you can find the suggested classifcation by harm: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6474053.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6474053.stm Of course, the point is not to ban alcohol, but to have a more mature debate about drugs (and possibly to unban relatively harmless drugs such as LSD, Ecstasy, Cannabis...)
- gruseom 16y agoNutt initially released this scale in 2009 and was sacked by the government over it ... and this in a moment of brilliance was dubbed the "Nutt Sack" by the UK press. (I would have felt guilty making this the first comment in the thread last night, but now that there's lots of serious discussion surely someone ought to sneak it in.)
- CWIZO 16y agoThis is the first time I see LSD and Ecstasy put together in a harmless group together with marijuana. Am I brainwashed or are you wrong? I mean, I've smoked dope and nothing bad ever happened. But a friend of mine took ecstasy once and blew his kidneys (he's waiting for a donor now).
- binarymax 16y agoThe problem with this is that if you are to buy illegal drugs such as exstacy, you cannot verify its purity. This is another argument for legalization - quality control. I am saddened by what your friend is going through. There is no way to know what he was actually sold. The scientists are rating the actual drug. What you get on the street is a coin toss.
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- corin_ 16y agoThat ranking is pretty ridiculous. Prof Nutt told the BBC: "Overall, alcohol is the most harmful drug because it's so widely used. "Crack cocaine is more addictive than alcohol but because alcohol is so widely used there are hundreds of thousands of people who crave alcohol every day, and those people will go to extraordinary lengths to get it." By that logic it's also more harmful to drive a car than to cut open your chest, pull out your heart and eat it?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- corin_ 16y agoOver the top, but making a valid point: Just because less people do something it doesn't make it "less harmful".
- swombat 16y agoThe point of the study is the government should address drugs based on the problems they do represent, not on the problems they might perhaps theoretically some day represent. Alcohol and tobacco do kill tens of thousands of people every year. Ecstasy and LSD and Cannabis kill maybe a dozen people every year all together, and usually in combination with other drugs. Yet there are considerably fewer resources allocated to fighting alcohol and tobacco use than the latter.
- jakerocheleau 16y agoactually LSD and cannabis has never killed anybody ever. just saying
- sfall 16y agosure but the ld50 of those drugs are higher than alcohol
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoPossibly, and the ld50 of beer is definitely higher than that of vodka. What are you trying to say? I don't think the amount ingested is very interesting here...
- sfall 16y agold50 is for alcohol, be it in beer or vodka or rum
- gaius 16y agoThis was on the news this morning complete with stock footage of adults drinking socially in the pub - but the problems with alcohol are around ultra-cheap alcohol bought in supermarkets.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jfager 16y agoThere is no chance that this chart is accurate for the US. Crack and heroin are together directly responsible for a ridiculously high percentage of gang violence and other inner-city problems, and crystal meth has destroyed many small rural towns throughout the south and midwest. More explanation of their methodology would be nice, especially given their use of data from the Netherlands, which has a very progressive drug policy.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Tuna-Fish 16y agoDrug-related gang violence isn't caused by drug use, it's caused by drug policy. Changing the policy so that it no longer creates ridiculously huge profit opportunities around the drugs in question does make the problems go away.
- jfager 16y agoI completely acknowledge the importance of policy, hence the mention of the Netherlands progressiveness in the area. Explain how you measure the social impact of a drug without also measuring the social impact of the policy around the drug (or how the study in question did it), and you've answered my question.
- drndown2008 16y agoThis argument drives me crazy. You think the drug pushers are gonna say "ah shucks. no more profit in drugs. guess I better go to college and get a real job." Trust me, they will find something else to exploit. Kidnapping in Bogota comes to mind. Crime won't go down.
- c3o 16y agoProbably many would find something else, and that's a problem - but surely it can't be used as justification for not changing the policies. Legalization should happen gradually and with some kind of amnesty outreach program. But even if not: Crime like robbery would likely spike, but unless gangs quickly find a replacement product that's in similarly high demand (if there was one, wouldn't they already be serving it?) I imagine cutting off their easiest source of income would fairly quickly reduce their power to attract new members, purchase weapons, etc.
- lemming 16y agoAnother interesting article from 2009 by the ever excellent Ben Goldacre: http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/this-is-my-column-this-is-my-column-on-drugs-any-questions http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/this-is-my-column-this-is-... This describes pretty concisely how governments might choose to use or not use evidence about drug harm and the reasons for doing so: Drugs instantiate the classic problem for evidence based social policy. It may well be that prohibition, and the inevitable distribution of drugs by criminals, gives worse results for all the outcomes we think are important, like harm to the user, harm to our communities through crime, and so on. But equally, it may well be that we will tolerate these worse outcomes, because we decide it is somehow more important that we publicly declare ourselves, as a culture, to be disapproving of drug use, and enshrine that principle in law. It’s okay to do that. You can have policies that go against your stated outcomes, for moral or political reasons: but that doesn’t mean you can hide the evidence, it simply means you must be clear that you don’t care about it.
- ry0ohki 16y agoShrooms and LSD are safer then steroids and tobacco? Who knew?
- BrandonM 16y agoAnyone who has ever taken shrooms or LSD?
- steveklabnik 16y agoPeople who use shrooms and LSD.
- ry0ohki 16y agoThe "man's" propaganda got to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0zgIzqgxFU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0zgIzqgxFU
- mrtron 16y agoSafer is a broad term. In terms of lethal dose they would be safer. By the author's scale they are safer. Premature death would be a difficult one to study - as I don't know if there are as many regular users of shrooms/lsd as there are with steroids/tobacco.
- swah 16y agoI never seen a family destroyed by tobacco, but I've seen families destroyed by cocaine. I don't understand how someone could put those two together.
- thenduks 16y agoI think if you look a little you'll find that plenty of families have been 'destroyed' by the effects of tobacco.
- Symmetry 16y agoAnd families being destroyed by alcohol is almost a stereotype.
- swah 16y agoHow so? In the sense that the smoker is all messed up in the hospital bringing pain to his relatives, sure. But I don't think people sell their mom's furniture to buy marlboro, and haven't seen moms chaining their kids to their beds to stop them from going out smoking.
- thenduks 16y agoI suppose it depends on your definition of 'destroyed', then. Personally, any kid of mine who I would consider chaining to a bed would be in rehab without a second thought -- on the other hand, smoking seems so innocuous that before you know it they're dying of lung cancer and you can't do anything about it... They aren't really comparable, if you ask me -- I get your point. All I'm saying is that some people can recreationally use all kinds of drugs (alcohol, meth, crack, whatever) and others can't. Smoking will just straight up kill you. So IMO, in terms of 'damage to society' smoking is way further up there than most illegal drugs.
- charlief 16y agoMulti-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), which Nutt used, is a tool for decision making, not something "sophisticated" to generate scientific evidence! It cannot estimate a drug's harm. Alcohol is wide-spread and deserves a discussion for that reason alone, but Nutt is not presenting "evidence" or anything new. MCDA is heavily prone to selection bias in picking criteria and weights. It is an extremely subjective process and is used when two or more decisions closely compete to give some pseudo-quantitative separation. When you structure the problem in which one alternative scores very high, the analysis didn't add a single ounce of value. Here is the original paper: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus1714/Estimating_drug_harms.pdf http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus1714/Estimating_drug_h... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-criteria_decision_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-criteria_decision_analysi...
- borism 16y agoI love it how you're being downvoted (your excellent comment pointing out the flaw in this study was at the top initially) without a single refutation! Speaks a lot about the values of this community and the karma system!
- swombat 16y agoMulti-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), which Nutt used, is a tool for decision making, not something "sophisticated" to generate scientific evidence! I have not read the papper, but informing public policy ("decision making") seems to be what this study is trying to do.
- charlief 16y agoI'm not sure what you mean by "informing public policy", but if the paper was to inform, they would provide summary of facts and facts only. The paper says it is trying to estimate drug harms using some set of arbitrary "harm parameters". I am saying you can't objectively estimate harms with an MCDA analysis. You're not going to get anything objective out of this unless you're framing it against an exact set of decisions you have to make. All you're going to do is find one group's interpretation. Although MCDA is systematic, and a lot of it including the ranking is generated automagically once you have everything set, overlaid with some "sophisticated" (Nutt's words in the interview) overtones, it is entirely subjective. If you wanted, I could give you an MCDA showing cocaine is more harmful to society just by tweaking a few criteria a tiny bit. I could add a practicality criteria in that drinking alcohol is a cultural practice in many places, or I can separate two forms of drinking, responsible drinking and irresponsible drinking. There are so many ways to slice it that if you don't have specific decisions you're evaluating against, the whole analysis is useless.
- c00p3r 16y agoIf you still thinking that alcohol isn't that harmful - visit Russia. ^_^ Life expectancy and mortality rate are very useful keywords.