Scoring drugs by The Economist online

[Colina]

A new study suggests alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack

drug harm in the UK:
http://www.economist.com/node/21012479

[Pauli Wallnuts]

sounds like bullshit to me, how can alcohol be more harmful to either the user or to others than crystal meth pro drug studies always place alcohol top to prove a point, not saying it aint bad, course it is but i never heard of someone getting hooked on alcohol after 1pint of beer

[Pauli Wallnuts]

just seen the smallprint at bottom of chart, the author of the study is david nutt it now makes all the sense in the world

[hardboiled]

sounds like bullshit to me, how can alcohol be more harmful to either the user or to others than crystal meth pro drug studies always place alcohol top to prove a point, not saying it aint bad, course it is but i never heard of someone getting hooked on alcohol after 1pint of beer

if you read it, the 'harm' to society measures relationship failures (divorce), time missed on social life, not spending time with the kids, mood alteration, lost income, work performance issues, yadda yadda.

It looks like an attempt to quantify the entire impact of recreational use of drugs to society as a whole.

Given what I've seen booze do in my family, I can understand it.

[youngian]

The Economist has always been a strong supporter for drug deregualtion and whatever you think of that it does research and frame its arguments in an intelligent grown up manner. Great antedote to the sort of half baked hysteria which tabloid TV and newspapers probigate.