id have to say smoking and heroin takes the most live. i was into heroin pretty bad myself a bout a year ago (ended) and about 3 years ago it started. within JUST that time, i have seen half my friends get killed from OD. I moved to florida a year ago, and still to this day get calls like these
"hey man.. you hear what happened to anthony?"
nah man what up
"he posted to fb 'finally gettin some sleep', then his mom said he did a big shot and wouldnt wake up"
just got that call 2 days ago. almost all my goood school friends are dead, and i have a couple left over who was smart like me, saved their own lives and moved outta that city.
The OP stated which has claimed the most lives. I think it definitively goes to tobacco, not completely sure, anyone prove me wrong.
Next in line is alcohol. Both for killing your soul and withdrawals from hell. Cirrhosis, DT's, bad stuff. My least preffered drug though. Dunno why everyone else likes getting drunk as hell, they might pay in the long run.
It's no surprise, they're legal drugs.
The most abused pills are benzos: alprazolam, clonazapam and diazepam (I think in that order)
No surprise alprazolam is number one, all the deaths are from mixing with other CNS depressants. Benzodiazipines are fairly safe in overdose they just cause a coma like state I believe, you need something else to make high recreational doses kill, probably most commonly alcohol.
Then are prescription opioids. Also death way more likely with another CNS depressant.
Then heroin probably, the misery is bad for many heroin addicts, as posted on this board. It's price and unobtainable (illegal, except in England for terminal patients) nature make withdrawals frequent and the cause the person using much grief, and want to make it instantly over. Alcohol addiction can be nasty cause it's cheap (boxed wine ect.) and obtainable quite easily, LARGE tolerances can build.
Never experienced alcohol withdrawal, but I'm sure it's worse than opioid withdrawal which I have experienced. Alcohol withdrawal if bad enough will kill, opioids will just make you so miserable you want to kill yourself, again if bad enough. I couldn't even imagine going cold turkey on 200+mg of methadone for a year+.