poledriver
Bluelighter
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What's The Most Dangerous Drug In The World?
What is the most dangerous drug in the world? This sounds like a relatively simple question: Surely it’s the one most likely to kill you, right? As it turns out, it depends on a multitude of things, from the individual owner's risk to the wider risk to society – and perception plays a large part.
How Do You Define “Dangerous?”
David Nutt is the Edmond J. Safra professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. He’s one of the world’s foremost experts on drugs, in terms of their use, their effects on the human brain, and international drug policy. Drug Science – formally the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs – is a science-led drugs charity and research organization headed by Professor Nutt.
In 2010, a now-infamous paper was published by the group detailing their scientific analysis on the harms of drugs available in the U.K., both legal and illegal. Sixteen parameters of harm were chosen, and were divided in terms of the specific drug’s direct and individual effects on the user. A direct effect of a drug on a person could be death through an overdose, for example; an indirect effect could be damage caused by becoming infected with HIV while using contaminated syringes. Each drug’s effect on others and the wider society were also taken into account.
The list included mortality likelihood, dependence, impairment of mental functioning, loss of tangible socioeconomic things (such as a house or a job), physical injury, and criminal activities. The economic cost to the country, as well as the international damage (in terms of political and societal destabilization, for example) were also considered.
“Ranking twenty different drugs on sixteen different harms – that’s the best method we’ve had,” Professor Nutt told IFLScience. In a more general sense, the detrimental effects of drugs could be divided into two broad categories: harm to others and harm to users.
Economic vs Personal Harm
his group also had to weight the different criteria – some harms were considered, albeit subjectively, more important than others. “There are two elements to it,” Nutt continued. “Deciding on the various harms – the 16 parameters – most experts agree on that. The more interesting question is how much you care about each of these different rankings; this is where the weightings come in. This could vary greatly depending on the group’s opinions.”
A European group also attempted the same process a few years after the publication of this Lancet study, in collaboration with Drug Science. In terms of the two groups, the British prioritized economic harm more, whereas the Europeans ranked personal harm as considerably more important.
One Every Ten Seconds
With all this taken into consideration, which drugs were considered the most harmful? Mostly due to its harm to others – including the wider economy – alcohol was considered to be by far the most dangerous. Heroin and crack cocaine were next on the list, mostly due to the harm to individual users, although they still had a significant “harm to others” component. Cannabis was ranked 8th for overall harm, whereas ecstasy and LSD were considered among the least harmful. Tobacco was ranked 6th, just behind cocaine.
Despite the European study using different harm weightings, the results were pretty much identical, with an extremely high level of agreement, or correlation, between the two studies. Only a few drugs – methamphetamine and ecstasy – changed positions slightly.
“We repeated the study at a European level, expanding it from a smaller British scale – and our experts really agree with each other,” lead author Dr. Jan van Amsterdam, of the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, told IFLScience. “We ranked it by personal harm, society harm, and economic harm – but the study was funded by the Ministry of Health, so there was [inevitably] a health focus.”
Regardless, the conclusion seems to be that alcohol is the most dangerous drug around. It directly causes a plethora of diseases, from cardiovascular and neurological disorders to liver degeneration; it indirectly causes transportation accidents, increases promiscuous activities and thus the likelihood of becoming infected by a range of pathogens, and makes an enormous dent in a nation’s economy as it pays for treatment for those suffering from alcohol-related problems.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 3.3 million deaths every year are caused by the harmful use of alcohol – that’s 5.9 percent of all annual deaths. Shockingly, this is roughly one person every 10 seconds.
Cont -
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/whats-most-dangerous-drug-world-according-science
What is the most dangerous drug in the world? This sounds like a relatively simple question: Surely it’s the one most likely to kill you, right? As it turns out, it depends on a multitude of things, from the individual owner's risk to the wider risk to society – and perception plays a large part.
How Do You Define “Dangerous?”
David Nutt is the Edmond J. Safra professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. He’s one of the world’s foremost experts on drugs, in terms of their use, their effects on the human brain, and international drug policy. Drug Science – formally the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs – is a science-led drugs charity and research organization headed by Professor Nutt.
In 2010, a now-infamous paper was published by the group detailing their scientific analysis on the harms of drugs available in the U.K., both legal and illegal. Sixteen parameters of harm were chosen, and were divided in terms of the specific drug’s direct and individual effects on the user. A direct effect of a drug on a person could be death through an overdose, for example; an indirect effect could be damage caused by becoming infected with HIV while using contaminated syringes. Each drug’s effect on others and the wider society were also taken into account.
The list included mortality likelihood, dependence, impairment of mental functioning, loss of tangible socioeconomic things (such as a house or a job), physical injury, and criminal activities. The economic cost to the country, as well as the international damage (in terms of political and societal destabilization, for example) were also considered.
“Ranking twenty different drugs on sixteen different harms – that’s the best method we’ve had,” Professor Nutt told IFLScience. In a more general sense, the detrimental effects of drugs could be divided into two broad categories: harm to others and harm to users.
Economic vs Personal Harm
his group also had to weight the different criteria – some harms were considered, albeit subjectively, more important than others. “There are two elements to it,” Nutt continued. “Deciding on the various harms – the 16 parameters – most experts agree on that. The more interesting question is how much you care about each of these different rankings; this is where the weightings come in. This could vary greatly depending on the group’s opinions.”
A European group also attempted the same process a few years after the publication of this Lancet study, in collaboration with Drug Science. In terms of the two groups, the British prioritized economic harm more, whereas the Europeans ranked personal harm as considerably more important.
One Every Ten Seconds
With all this taken into consideration, which drugs were considered the most harmful? Mostly due to its harm to others – including the wider economy – alcohol was considered to be by far the most dangerous. Heroin and crack cocaine were next on the list, mostly due to the harm to individual users, although they still had a significant “harm to others” component. Cannabis was ranked 8th for overall harm, whereas ecstasy and LSD were considered among the least harmful. Tobacco was ranked 6th, just behind cocaine.
Despite the European study using different harm weightings, the results were pretty much identical, with an extremely high level of agreement, or correlation, between the two studies. Only a few drugs – methamphetamine and ecstasy – changed positions slightly.
“We repeated the study at a European level, expanding it from a smaller British scale – and our experts really agree with each other,” lead author Dr. Jan van Amsterdam, of the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, told IFLScience. “We ranked it by personal harm, society harm, and economic harm – but the study was funded by the Ministry of Health, so there was [inevitably] a health focus.”
Regardless, the conclusion seems to be that alcohol is the most dangerous drug around. It directly causes a plethora of diseases, from cardiovascular and neurological disorders to liver degeneration; it indirectly causes transportation accidents, increases promiscuous activities and thus the likelihood of becoming infected by a range of pathogens, and makes an enormous dent in a nation’s economy as it pays for treatment for those suffering from alcohol-related problems.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 3.3 million deaths every year are caused by the harmful use of alcohol – that’s 5.9 percent of all annual deaths. Shockingly, this is roughly one person every 10 seconds.
Cont -
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/whats-most-dangerous-drug-world-according-science
in its street form Desomorphine has to be one of the most dangerous drugs to take, cos of yeah, impurities n shit. Alcohol is socially acceptable to abuse and impairs your judgment to a ridiculous point, as well as being widely available, addictive and used by pretty much everyone. Not surprised it rates the highest.
