I enjoy one (tiny) crack rock before dinner...

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This is my signature...

Yeah, that's the conventional wisdom. Are we correct though? Should we question it?

This is from WebMd in 2010

Experts: Alcohol More Harmful Than Crack or Heroin
Substance Abuse Ranked According to Harm to User and Society

By Tim Locke
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD
Neuropharmacologist David Nutt, MD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues rated 20 different drugs on a scale that takes into account the various harms caused by a drug. Drugs are rated on nine harms a drug causes an individual and seven harms a drug causes society.

The scale, developed by a panel of experts called the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ICSD), ranges from 0 (no harm) to 100 (greatest possible harm). It is weighted so that a drug that scores 50 is half as harmful as a drug that scores 100.

"The highest and lowest overall harm scores … are 72 for alcohol and 5 for mushrooms," Nutt and colleagues calculate. "The ICSD scores lend support to the widely accepted view that alcohol is an extremely harmful drug both to users and to society."

Alcohol was found to be the most harmful drug to society and the fourth most harmful drug to users.

The findings should come as no surprise: Alcohol has been linked to more than 60 diseases.

"Alcohol does all kinds of things in the body, and we're not fully aware of all its effects," alcohol researcher James C. Garbutt, MD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recently told WebMD. "It's a pretty complicated little molecule."

Alcohol vs. Heroin, Other Drugs

Using the ICSD ratings, Nutt and colleagues rated 20 substances in terms of the overall harm they do. Their results:



Alcohol 72
Heroin 55
Crack 54
Crystal meth 33
Cocaine 27
Tobacco 26
Amphetamine/speed 23
Cannabis (marijuana) 20
GHB 18
Benzodiazepines (e.g. valium) 15
Ketamine 15
Methadone 14
Mephedrone (aka drone, MCAT) 13
Butane 10
Khat 9
Ecstacy 9
Anabolic steroids 9
LSD 7
Buprenorphine 6
Mushrooms 5


Heroin, crack, and crystal meth were the most harmful drugs to the individual, while alcohol, heroin and crack were the most harmful to others.

According to this "multicriteria decision analysis approach," alcohol is almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.

Nutt and colleagues conclude that aggressively targeting alcohol harm is “a valid and necessary public health strategy."

In an editorial accompanying the Nutt team's report, Jan van Amsterdam of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and Wim van den Brink of the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction research note that the legal penalties prescribed by various nations’ drug policies are out of synch with the actual harms caused by different drugs.

"It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," van Amsterdam and van den Brink write.

The editorial and the Nutt study appear in the Nov. 1 Online First edition of The Lancet.

Now you're just making stuff up. One sip of alcohol and you are "impaired"

And yes, many people can smoke a little and have very little effect. It works just like with drinkers.

A heavy drinker wont get much of a buzz off one beer. A heavy smoker wont get much of a buzz off of one hit.


This is the problem some people have with weed. They abused it and sat around getting as high as possible in a dorm room in college and think that is everyone's routine.

It would be like thinking anyone who drinks any alcohol is binge drinking and doing beer bongs.

If I may quote Dan Bernstein

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I understand you're not interested in challenging any conventional wisdom.


The Earth is Flat. It just is.

BTW, there are many instances when someone thought they werent impaired (because its just booze man, I can handle it) and then they killed someone in a car accident

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Is it your goal on this board to just disagree with whatever I say?

I mean, I don't think I'm taking a crazy stance here. To act like I'm some sort of stupid denier because I think crystal meth and heroin are more dangerous than alcohol is surprising.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If you gave me some dirty, brown weed to smoke, I wouldn't get high.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

As an appetizer.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

I realizing i am making inferences here, but I kind of took the statements as "alcohol is more dangerous than people think" moreso than "heroin and crack are less dangerous than people think"

Ive agreed with you several times today.

Can you ever consider that MAYBE there's a slight chance that something you thought you knew was incorrect?

Im sorry the way you post seems to indicate that you accept all conventional wisdom.



Its not the opinion, its the inability/unwillingness to ever test these things.

I post an article written by a doctor detailing a study that disagrees with what you and I think about Meth and Heroin.

Im open to the fact that maybe we were wrong

You say "No, were not talking about it"

If I may quote everybody reading this thread.... You brought it up you assbag!

And who cares which is more dangerous? We don't ban everything that is dangerous.

That's the joke.

Looks like your rageposting has failed you again.

This is the second straight day where you owe me an apology.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Think long and hard if the stance of "Crystal meth and heroin are more dangerous than alcohol" is where you really want to take this stand.

In fact, I don't even think you have said that statement is wrong. If you think I'm wrong there then say it.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I already said I know very little about heroin and meth. I assumed, like you, that they were more dangerous than the drugs we've deemed OK.

But Farve Fan made me want to at least check in on it. Now Im not sure.


It seems the danger to others might be true. I dont know.

I've been drinking for more than half my life and now someone tells me I would be better off doing heroin. Where were you when I was 14?

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Any list that has Pot ranked higher than ecstasy and LSD just isn't credible. Come on now...

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

Scorehead if you look at how they come up with the index you might find it more believable.

More people drive on booze and weed than LSD so that affects the public more.

This was supposed to be a private business arrangement .....

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I'm going to gobble down some 'shrooms tonight !

We've had this conversation plenty of times. Links and articles have been posted. I've looked at many others.

It basically comes down to people saying "Alcohol is dangerous too" even though it isn't being argued otherwise. That is why I said I just wasn't interested in it. If you want to research it and then you figure out that alcohol is more dangerous than heroin and crystal meth I'll probably read it.

For me, I'm glad that I chose to drink alcohol rather than do crystal meth or do heroin. Maybe I made a poor choice though and things would be going better for me if I had chosen those other safer paths.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Man 2 off my victim card list pulling it within an hour. Talk about knowing your stuff.

Oh, and eat a giant bag of dicks.

Stop copying Chus. You aren't good at being him.

Also, stop with the rageposting and mellow out. Maybe you won't be so horrible.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

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This is my signature...

Im not sure we chose alcohol, its the one that got thru.

And Im not even talking about danger to the user, im talking danger to others.


Like Nitrous. People get high for like 30 second intervals. I dont see how that could be dangerous to others but it sure as hell kills the user's brain cells

What was this thread about?

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

people who recline their seats on an airplane

Without wearing a suit coat.

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