A new study finds, “alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems.”

Research recently published in the medical journal The Lancet rates the most dangerous drugs (starting with the worst) as follows:

1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines
8. Amphetamine
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat

This is not news to marijuana smokers. And, judging by the dismissive public reaction of the prohibitionists, it is not surprising to them either. The difference is in their responses. While most people recognize a need for drug policy change, some still cling to the old patronizing, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…we know it’s safe. It’s also illegal; deal with it.”

But how shall we deal with it?

Prohibitionists often advance the argument that society does have the right to interfere with individual liberty. Since we all enjoy the benefits of a safe and healthy society, we all have an obligation to live within the guidelines that make civilized society possible. Those guidelines are our laws. If you don’t like them, change them; but obey them in the process. That is civilized behavior.

They are right to a point. We don’t drive whatever speed we’d like because we couldn’t live with everyone else doing the same. We don’t just take things that do not belong to us because we respect the social value of private property. Yet, when the laws are seen as arbitrary and victimless, people stop respecting them. The very citizens who will surrender basic liberties in order to be civilized will risk prison to remain free. Of what value is a public health policy that is ignored by so much of the population?

Health and safety policy must be based on knowledge, not the characteristics of the current political regime. In order for the public to trust, and therefore respect, health policy, it should come from those who understand health. In the US and Britain, the relationship between knowledge, power, and public policy discounts knowledge in favor of power.

Drug laws are clearly not based on public health or safety. Drugs like insulin and Cipro are not dangerous or addictive, but are nevertheless controlled. Cannabis is labeled more dangerous than cocaine, and declared to have no medicinal value, while tobacco is no more restricted than lottery tickets. Does anyone actually believe this is proper?

Prohibitionists use public policy to punish those who choose a different lifestyle. If we want the public to respect the rule of law, then the laws must be based on the public good. We must distinguish between the actual pharmacological effects of drugs and the hysterical misinformation spread by the militant moralists.

Until we are willing to address the issue with a rational, science-based approach, our drug laws will continue to fail society and accomplish none of what they claim to pursue. If you don’t agree, consider the law and ask yourself two questions: Who has better access to alcohol and tobacco, you or your children? Who has better access to marijuana?

Alcohol, tobacco make top 10 list of risky drugs
British study rated the substances more dangerous than marijuana, Ecstasy

LONDON - New “landmark” research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.

In research published Friday in The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain’s Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society. Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.

Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug’s potential for addiction and the impact on society of drug use. The researchers asked two groups of experts — psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise — to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD.

Nutt and his colleagues then calculated the drugs’ overall rankings. In the end, the experts agreed with each other — but not with the existing British classification of dangerous substances.

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.

‘Current drug system is ill thought-out’
According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and Ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain’s drug classification system.

“The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary,” said Nutt, referring to the United Kingdom’s practice of assigning drugs to three distinct divisions, ostensibly based on the drugs’ potential for harm. “The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary,” write Nutt and his colleagues in The Lancet.

Tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.

Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs — including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol — should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt’s study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities.

“This is a landmark paper,” said Dr. Leslie Iversen, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University. Iversen was not connected to the research. “It is the first real step towards an evidence-based classification of drugs.” He added that based on the paper’s results, alcohol and tobacco could not reasonably be excluded.

“The rankings also suggest the need for better regulation of the more harmful drugs that are currently legal, i.e. tobacco and alcohol,” wrote Wayne Hall, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, in an accompanying Lancet commentary. Hall was not involved with Nutt’s paper.

While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.

Nutt called for more education so that people were aware of the risks of various drugs. “All drugs are dangerous,” he said. “Even the ones people know and love and use every day.”

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