Alcohol More Dangerous Than Heroin, Study Finds

CptStern

CptStern

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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.

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
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they should scrap the war on drugs and start the war on booze just so they can get slapped by the glove of in your face irony

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130972513
 
If booze did ever get banned, which it wont because they make so much cash out of the tax on top, then would be a massive up raw. Its to big a part of our culture to get rid of it.
 
Man, I really hope we don't have any massive up raws.
 
They should legalize weed, ecstasy & MDMA, shrooms and LSD. Make Meth and heroin less attractive to use through educating people on the consequences of using them. And spend all the tax you make from the legal drugs on health care and schooling. Problem solved.
 
If I could "Like" your second last post I would Dodo, like in Facebook. Also this is such a Capt Obvious Study!! I could have gotten you results for free at least a decade ago!
 
Dodo said:
They should legalize weed, ecstasy & MDMA, shrooms and LSD. Make Meth and heroin less attractive to use through educating people on the consequences of using them. And spend all the tax you make from the legal drugs on health care and schooling. Problem solved.
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If only the world was run by such reasonable people.
 
I still fail to even come close to believing a lick of this "Study". Seriously, alcohol more damaging to ANYTHING than Meth? ..........SERIOUSLY?

meth%20WEB%20montana.jpg


Looks alright to me! And seems to be able to function in society well. I mean, I bet she can hold a steady 40 hour a week job, go and help the parents put up new siding on their house over the weekend, and still come back to enjoy a little meth before bed.
 
I'm 100,000,000% sure more people in this world die from alcohol related deaths than meth. think of how many people drink versus how many people do meth. in fact I don't know anyone that does meth but I know at least 1,000 people that drink. and this study focused on the entire population as a whole. meth is definitely a worse drug when comparing it between 2 people: a meth head and an drunkard.
 
Of course more people die from alcohol related issues than Meth. There are a billion more people using it. The percentage will always be higher when you just flat out compare numbers like that. But look at the % of people who are completely useless to society with booze. So you got % of people that can't do shit for themselves/others vs people who drink and can function. THEN do the same thing to Meth. I'm sorry, I'm betting meth addicts are closer to 90% being useless.

I just think this is a study based on a groups opinion, hence their arbitrary 'ranking' based on damage. I have never lost a GF due to booze, I'm relatively mentally fit, I'm surely not dead...hell, I wonder what else they decide to rank on? Penis size after using said drug? Would fit in with their opinionated study.
 
cyberpitz you're misinterpretating the study. it doesnt say that alcohol is most destructive on the individual it says it's the most destructive as a whole; they even say it's partially because of how many people use it, it's legal status etc. they clearly say that meth heroin, coke is more destructive to the individual
 
It's a rather banal point to say alcohol is more destructive, due to its far more widespread use. Like saying alcohol is more destructive than thermonuclear weapons.
 
at some point people have to acknowledge whether it's the article's fault or the fact that people commenting on the article ...havent read the article

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.
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jesus ****ing christ guys it was in the second paragraph. all of these factors are true for all the drugs; that was the measuring stick and they found that in alcohol these indicators are more pronounced than in other drugs

Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them.
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CptStern said:
at some point people have to acknowledge whether it's the article's fault or the fact that people commenting on the article ...havent read the article



jesus ****ing christ guys it was in the second paragraph. all of these factors are true for all the drugs; that was the measuring stick and they found that in alcohol these indicators are more pronounced than in other drugs
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My points are to people who are going to interpret this article and go "OMG BAN BOOZE!" Also, everybody I know that drinks booze cause no "devastating consequence " to anything besides their liver. Something tells me this article is bloated and set to the point to help the legalization of weed. "Look how low it is!" I see absolutely not other purpose than these arbitrary scores. Sure, people kill while on booze, but people kill after playing a video game. Stupid people will always do stupid shit.
 
Are people talking about the news article (science reporting is 99.9% shit) or the research paper?
 
CyberPitz said:
My points are to people who are going to interpret this article and go "OMG BAN BOOZE!" Also, everybody I know that drinks booze cause no "devastating consequence " to anything besides their liver. Something tells me this article is bloated and set to the point to help the legalization of weed. "Look how low it is!" I see absolutely not other purpose than these arbitrary scores. Sure, people kill while on booze, but people kill after playing a video game. Stupid people will always do stupid shit.
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I think responsible drinkers or even smokers are not integral to the statistics they used or the study in general.

The point was to evaluate and quantify the level of stress a substance may put on society. Yes, alcohol is by far the most pervasive, but popularity is no reason throw out the research or defend responsible use.

I think what is important is this study highlights the extreme double-standard held by the Federal government and most anti-drug citizens. "We shouldn't decriminalize marijuana because it's bad! We love booze!" type of attitudes.

I think few people if anyone will ever try to ban alcohol. I'm a non-drinker and even I accept it's value to society in both industry and culture, but the more studies done that will give the people some perspective, the better.
 
So, if i do both alcohol and meth at the same time, since they are both negatives, and two negatives make a positive, no harm done right?
 
The issue, as cyberpitz has pointed out, is that this will be used as a talking point for people to try and make legalization argument for drugs that are orders of magnitude more lethal and more addictive than alcohol, whose impact is only limited by the low availability and usage.

Also, this article shows the usual fallacies of science reporting, and the study probably made a far larger point of indicating that alcohol's impact is due to usage statistics, not its physiological impacts.

I can't find the source (sorry, I looked), but I distinctly remember this same point being made in a data table I saw sometime last year. Slow news day, I guess.
 
Maestro said:
The issue, as cyberpitz has pointed out, is that this will be used as a talking point for people to try and make legalization argument for drugs that are orders of magnitude more lethal and more addictive than alcohol, whose impact is only limited by the low availability and usage.
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Are you serious? Who is going to try to legalise meth? Why would anyone try to legalise meth? That's a completely ridiculous argument and oh yeah it's also a slippery slope argument - "if we legalise this, pretty soon they'll be handing out METH (and possibly GAY PORNOGRAPHY??????????)"

No-one in their right mind would argue for the legalisation of meth. It's a ****ing terrible drug. LSD, marijuana, those I can understand, but MDMA, cocaine, heroin, etc. all have a much higher level of danger+potential addictiveness and would be ridiculous to try to get legislated. Education is key, not brutal anti-drug laws.
 
Maestro said:
The issue, as cyberpitz has pointed out, is that this will be used as a talking point for people to try and make legalization argument for drugs that are orders of magnitude more lethal and more addictive than alcohol, whose impact is only limited by the low availability and usage.

Also, this article shows the usual fallacies of science reporting, and the study probably made a far larger point of indicating that alcohol's impact is due to usage statistics, not its physiological impacts.

I can't find the source (sorry, I looked), but I distinctly remember this same point being made in a data table I saw sometime last year. Slow news day, I guess.
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Not me, I'm going to use this as an argument to ban alcohol.
 
CyberPitz said:
My points are to people who are going to interpret this article and go "OMG BAN BOOZE!" Also, everybody I know that drinks booze cause no "devastating consequence " to anything besides their liver. Something tells me this article is bloated and set to the point to help the legalization of weed. "Look how low it is!" I see absolutely not other purpose than these arbitrary scores. Sure, people kill while on booze, but people kill after playing a video game. Stupid people will always do stupid shit.
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Are you ****ing serious? I can't even single out a sentence in there to find fault with, it's like you literally dragged your head across the keyboard.

You're drunk right now, right?

Maestro said:
The issue, as cyberpitz has pointed out, is that this will be used as a talking point for people to try and make legalization argument for drugs that are orders of magnitude more lethal and more addictive than alcohol, whose impact is only limited by the low availability and usage.
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I don't understand how it's possible to so grossly misunderstand a study. The research states that alcohol has a devastating effect, in part because of it's legality and wide-spread acceptance, so... you think people would want that for other, more lethal drugs? Why?

Are we just working on the assumption that everyone is either drunk or high as ****?
 
drugdoses.jpg


However, to be fair, unless you are drinking from a 'beer bong', chances are you will stop drinking before you have a lethal dose of alcohol (alcohol poisoning is extremely rare). You can't do that with most of these other drugs. Still, the fact remains, alcohol is quite lethal compared to most illegal drugs.

Another interesting fact: half of all accidents that result in emergency room visits involve alcohol.
 
toaster leigh said:
That isn't going far enough at all. All drugs should be legalized, especially the addictive ones like heroin or cocaine. Drug laws as they exist currently essentially effect the exploitation of addicts by dealers and perpetuate gang crime. I

doesn't mean everyone will suddenly think that taking meth is a super cool idea, esp. if public service announcements regarding drugs stopped being intentionally misleading and started actually being informative, like warning about the early signs of addiction and what to do etc. As with all issues of this sort, they solution is problematic on its own, but makes far more sense as part of a greater social reform (you know like the kind where we all stop pissing on poor people and actually try to like, I dunno, help them)
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It's great on paper, I won't argue that, but totally unrealistic. Your argument is based on the totally hypothetical situation that-

1. Consumers are intelligent.

2. Consumers are responsible.

3. That the media would gain anything from being unbiased and factual.

4. That consumers would listen to media that is anything but one-sided sensationalist garbage.

It will never, ever happen. Consumers will always desire guidance and control of which vices they can or cannot indulge in; and they will need this through Bud Light Super Bowl Commercials and scary Fox News Reports, forever and always. They will always perceive "legal" as "good" and "illegal" as "bad".
It's entirely evident in our consumption of alcohol and tobacco, but fear of marijuana and other drugs; Seriously, look at how many people in the US are A-Okay with drinking until their liver shits, or smoking until they've got cancer, but totally against any other form of drug use. We've known for decades, the dangers of tobacco and alcohol, does anyone really care? Hell no. What makes you think people will care about the dangers of meth? They won't.
 
Don't be so sure:

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results

In 2001 Portugal decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006.

The report shot down the assumption that liberalizing drug laws will create an increase in drug use and addiction, one of the DEA’s top ten reasons against legalization.
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Keep in mind: it doesn't say they decriminalized the distribution/sales, only the possession.

Spain and Italy have also decriminalized personal use of drugs and Mexico's president has proposed doing the same.
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization
 
The grip alcohol has on the world has to do with it being legal. In other words, if it was still illegal to manufacture and distribute it, but legal to possess for personal use, it would be far, far less prevalent, obviously. Couple that with widespread acceptance (many consider alcohol separate from drugs!) and a bombardment with clever advertising.

I think legalizing all drugs would be bad. However, decriminalizing possession, for personal use (like Portugal's 10 day amount) seems like it has a chance of improving things, as it seems to show in Portugal, so far.

Since 1972, U.S. taxpayers have spent well over $20 billion enforcing criminal marijuana laws. Additionally, 16.5 million people have been arrested
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That's just for marijuana!
 
There's two ways to break it down.

Anything that is legal; the government gets money from.

Anything illegal; the government gets almost no money from.

They dont care about your safety, they just want to get you hooked on some legal stuff, and they just keep naming symptoms until they say one that you think you have, so you end up rushing out to buy a drug that helps your disease of slightly elongated finger nails syndrome.

''Smoking is bad for you, kills thousands every year, it is now banned in public places!''
''Can we still buy cigarettes?''
''Of course! But you cant smoke them around here. You can smoke them in the woods, under a blanket with a torch.''

It's RETARDED. Banning smoking in public areas because its a risk to public health yet still allowing cigarettes to be sold?? Haha. Why? Oh thats right, because it brings in hundreds of millions in taxes.

Do you know what the world would be like if they DID legalize marijuana etc? There'd be a coke and weed shop on every frigging high-street or block corner.

And regarding alcohol, I say flat out ban it. It does nothing good. Yes it's been a social lubricant for the past few hundred years, but we can live without it. Makes teenagers so annoying you want to kill them.

Okay maybe not get rid of it completely, but atleast raise the drinkinga age and enforce it in such a way that a kid never gets to buy any, because anyone with half a brain knows that the majority of age restrictions on anything these days are pretty much ignored.
 
Yeah, I agree with Dynasty, can we please tell cops to be super sure they don't let teenagers get their hands on alcohol? That would just be great, thanks.
 
Research article available for free HERE if you register.

And a better news story than in the OP covering it HERE
 
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