^addictive potential is hard to quantify, and it's probably fallacious to attempt to assign a hard'n'fast rating to each drug in the pharmacopaeia.
I mean - take tobacco (nicotine). In it's original context (ritual use by N American inigenous people), it probably caused very little harm, with few people "addicted" to it. Fast forward to the present - large corporations have spent a lot of time & effort designing and perfecting a delivery device to maximise addictive potential - and fuck me if cigs aren't a bastard to quit! And what about heroin - prior to prohibition in 1954, Australians were the largest per capita consumers of hereoin in the world, with very few problems. Now we consume about 100x as much (per capita), and there's definitely harm 8(
According to Zinberg (Drug, Set and Setting 1984 - you can read it online at
www.drugtext.org ) the harms (or dangers, in the context of the thread title) associated with a particular drug can only be understood by considering the drug (action, purity, dose, route of administration), the mental state of the person taking it (or "set"), and the context of the drug taking ("setting"). He even argues that, for instance, the current illicit and stigmatised status of heroin makes it harder to be a casual user - the context pushes heroin users towards dependent use. I'd have to agree with that one.
Meth is a tricky one for me - obviously smoked crystal meth is highly habit forming, but I wonder how many people would become dependent meth users if they really understood from the get go how habit forming it is. I suspect that incidence of dependence is increased by a "it won't happen to me" or "it can't be that bad" attitude. Also consider - in Australia, heroin is understood to be the devil drug - meth users can tell themselves that they are using a soft drug "compared to heroin". And if they are smoking it, they can still hate on those goddamn needle freaks!
In comparison - everyone knows skydiving is dangerous - but you need to be trained, and use special equipment, before you jump out of a plane. Imagine if you could go to "meth school" - would meth be safer then? I think it would.
Now - just to contradict all that erudite shit - here's my 2c on dangerous drugs - fucking datura!!!! also avils and artane
Who the hell ever has any fun on those drugs!!!