Sorry, I call BS. First, ranked by whom? Besides internet listicles, I mean. Second, those rankings, valid or not, are always a mix of legal and illegal drugs,

Sorry, I call BS. First, ranked by whom? Besides internet listicles, I mean. Second, those rankings, valid or not, are always a mix of legal and illegal drugs, with legal ones like alcohol, nicotine, and benzodiazepines sitting above heroin, morphine, and opium. Not to mention caffeine, which we begin feeding to children at extremely young ages alongside the amphetamines we pump them full of if they have trouble paying attention when locked in a classroom all day. Third, as someone else says below, stories about your friends are also anecdotes. (I'm sorry, genuinely, that they died.) You don't know "the reality" of heroin because there are a litany of such realities - and here's a scientist telling you about his. The thousands (more?) who use heroin like my aunt uses a snifter of brandy at Christmas don't appear on anyone's radar because they're not dying and they're not rocking the boat. I could go on and on about the lives lost or ruined by alcohol in my family tree alone, let alone just "people I know", but I'm not terrified and calling to ban alcohol. Finally, that so many people on a web forum whose userbase is wealthier, whiter, and way more privileged than the population at large rushing breathlessly into a post to call a black man (from the ghetto of Miami FL, no less) who uses small amounts of opiates "dangerous" is, excuse me, pretty effing rich. I thought tech-libertarians were supposed to be less reactionary.