UK: Scientists want new drug rankings [Merged]

i dont understand, why is lsd mor harmful than e? lsd does absolutely no damage to the body yet e is nuerotoxic.
 
^ They're ranked on their perceived danger to society as well as the individual.
 
I saw this maybe 6 months to a year ago, and it invoked a fairly similar response amongst the bluelight community then. Whilst I do agree it paints a far more accurate picture than the current scheduling system, it's still full of inconsistencies. Ketamine and solvents are two of the greatest incongruitites in this 'progressive' ranking system, in my opinion. I do realise that ketamine has a much more widespread usage in the UK club scene, but it would appear relatively benign compared to amphetamine, tobacco, solvents etc which all figure later in the list. Again, alkyl nitrite should be higher, as it is a organic solvent and can be hg bonding and quite detrimental to one's health.

I'd also have ecstacy and ghb higher. If we are looking at not only fatalities, but greater social issues then i'd say ecstacy should be higher in its ranking on that basis alone and the dosage/response curve with ghb speaks for itself.
 
Trogdor said:
Probably plenty of people... just because you can't overdose doesn't mean the lung cancer won't kill you down the road. Honestly though, I have my doubts when it comes to cannabis-related cancer, but then again, 'Bob Marley' is all I've got to say about that.
Click to expand...

There is no link between marijuana smoke and cancer.

The Washington Post has an article on the topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

Weed does however increase the likelihood of getting cancer from tobacco! So put down that cigarette, and pick up some grass! Although a ways back I read an article on erowid that suggested the opposite. Who knows, with all these bias anti-weed propaganda you can never get the full truth. Ever.
 
I think this scale is about right. Interesting K was so high and amphetamines fall one place lower.

If in Australia right now scientists published a series of reccomendations such as these they would be lynched!! A study that paints speed and ice as less dangerous than beers, well that can't be true, we're a nation of alcoholics and we're fine... pffft 8)
 
By the way, what about mushrooms? Don't they deserve a place rather than the khat which is virtually unknown outside the horn of Africa (Ethipia and Somalia)?
 
I wonder where meth is falling on the list, must be the 21st most harmful, Well I know my new main game is
 
Any chance the "experts" could be comprised of a "brain trust" from Bluelight.com? A Senior Fellow from the prestigeous Bluelight Institute?
 
Alcohol more dangerous than Ecstasy?

This happened to pop up on my google homepage yesterday:

March 27, 2007
Scientists in Britain are proposing a complete revamping of drug classifications in the wake of findings that reveal some major discrepancies between a drug's legality and its safeness. A study surveying health, crime and science professionals regarding the dangers of a set of 20 legal and illegal drugs, published in The Lancet in March 2007, found that alcohol and tobacco, which are legal in Britain and the United States, are considered by experts to be more dangerous than ecstasy and marijuana, which are illegal in both countries...


Further reading....

http://health.howstuffworks.com/drug-ranking.htm
 
ah, sorry. I missed this thread when I looked to see if it had been posted already.
 
Alcohol, tobacco among worst drugs

LONDON, England (AP) -- Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy, according to a new British study.

In research published Friday in The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain's Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society.

Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.

Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug's potential for addiction, and the impact on society of drug use.

The researchers asked two groups of experts -- psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise -- to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD.

Nutt and his colleagues then calculated the drugs' overall rankings. In the end, the experts agreed with each other -- but not with the existing British classification of dangerous substances.

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was ecstasy.

According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain's drug classification system.

"The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary," said Nutt, referring to the United Kingdom's practice of assigning drugs to three distinct divisions, ostensibly based on the drugs' potential for harm. "The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary," write Nutt and his colleagues in The Lancet.

Tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.

Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs -- including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol -- should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt's study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities.

"This is a landmark paper," said Dr. Leslie Iversen, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University. Iversen was not connected to the research. "It is the first real step towards an evidence-based classification of drugs." He added that based on the paper's results, alcohol and tobacco could not reasonably be excluded.

"The rankings also suggest the need for better regulation of the more harmful drugs that are currently legal, i.e. tobacco and alcohol," wrote Wayne Hall, of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, in an accompanying Lancet commentary. Hall was not involved with Nutt's paper.

While experts agreed that criminalizing alcohol and tobacco would be challenging, they said that governments should review the penalties imposed for drug abuse and try to make them more reflective of the actual risks and damages involved.

Nutt called for more education so that people were aware of the risks of various drugs. "All drugs are dangerous," he said. "Even the ones people know and love and use every day."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/03/23/drugs.report.ap/index.html
 
This study is in a new article every week.

Well, at least its getting the word out
 
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