Drug Harm: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Short of taking whatever the drug czar's office tells you as the gospel, how do you actually assess the relative harm that drugs inflict — say, XTC versus Budweiser? Here's a good try from the U.K.

You develop a rating system that takes three factors into account: the physical harm the drug does to to the user; the addictiveness of the drug; and the severity of the drug's long-term effect on friends, families, communities, and society. That's what a team led by professors David Nutt from the University of Bristol and Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, has just done. They asked a range of experts to rate the dangers of twenty different drugs, from tobacco to LSD, resulting in "a comprehensive 9-category matrix of harm."

The new matrix puts alcohol and tobacco toward the top in terms of harmfulness. Those widely accepted drugs were deemed riskier than pot, and much more dangerous than substances like LSD, methamphetamines, and XTC.

Five or ten years ago, these results would have been a powerful argument for decriminalizing cannabis and other relatively benign drugs (and rightly so). No longer. The more likely outcome, given the way British authorities have been cracking down on alcohol and tobacco, is that smoking and drinking will increasingly become a target of health nannies and zealous anti-sin legislators, who can now claim triumphantly that lighting up or having a few beers is more harmful than taking meth or LSD.

I have a feeling I will be linking back to this post quite a bit in the future, saying, with considerably more exasperation than satisfaction, 'I told you so.'

Comments

[Myrtle]

And my prediction for the US is more regulation of caffeine especially by minors. As alcohol and tobacco are successfully banned, attention must be turned to different products.

In ten years ID will be required to buy a latte. Stories about parents and physicians complaining about the bad influence of Starbucks on their high school students will increase.

[Phil]

@Myrtle: How awesome would be it be if you were joking? Seriously, imagine a world in which your words are absurd.

Sigh.

[Martin Owens]

In then end we will reach regulatory meltdown: Everything will be forbidden to everybody at all times for any reason, and there will be so many laws that no one will be able to say what the law is- not that anyone will care.

We will attain the freedom of the Soviet citizen: " all right, it IS illegal. Now let's see ya catch me!"

[Myrtle]

"and there will be so many laws that no one will be able to say what the law is"

You're not giving enough credit. Too many laws on the book probably means that enforcement is selective and dependent on the political whims de jour.

With the rising use of tracking bracelets we can ALL be under house arrest, no worries about not enough jail beds.