Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in terms of social costs, and heroin and crack cause the greatest health and personal problems, says a new study by scientists from London Imperial College, writes The Lancet and the Internet.
A team from the London Imperial College, led by neuropsychopharmacologist David Nutt, in Drug Harms in the UK published in The Lancet, presented the results of research on the most dangerous drugs in the UK. Britain and the world. The results of this study support the controversial thesis that alcohol is the most dangerous drug available legally and illegally.
The study examined 20 different drugs including marijuana, tobacco, methamphetamine, ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol. Each of them was assigned an index depending on the degree of causing various types of problems, such as health problems, injuries, mental and personal disorders, e.g. loss of material position, e.g. as a result of dismissal from work and loss of personal ties and problems in relationships. Each drug was given a separate index depending on the social problems it caused: crimes, family problems, and the overall economic cost to society.
Considering only the importance of the first indicator, the most dangerous drugs have turned out to be heroin and crack cocaine. According to a team at London Imperial College, they cause the greatest health and personal problems. However, after adding the second indicator and adding them up, it turned out that alcohol left both dangerous drugs behind and became the most dangerous of them. The research team speculates that the reason is that in many societies, access to alcohol for adults is easy and unimpeded.
After alcohol, cocaine and heroin, it was followed by crystalline methamphetamine and regular cocaine, slightly ahead of another legally available drug – tobacco. In seventh place was amphetamine. Marijuana was ranked eighth. Club drugs like ecstasy are in 14th place along with anabolic steroids and qat, a plant from North Africa and the Persian Gulf, chewed for a stimulant effect. The hallucinogenic mushrooms turned out to be the relatively least dangerous drug. (PAP)