Alcohol 'more harmful than illegal drugs'
Alcohol can be more harmful than illegal drugs according to drugs expert
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Thursday, 29, Oct 2009 10:45
By Sarah Garrod
Alcohol can more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD and ecstasy, a drugs expert has claimed today.
According to the new briefing from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London, alcohol poses the biggest drugs harm challenge.
In the research Professor David Nutt argues that the relative harms of legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are greater than those of a number of illegal drugs, including cannabis, LSD and ecstasy.
Prof Nutt has now proposed a 'drug harm ranking', with alcohol ranking as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth, with cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively.
Professor Nutt today said: "No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is one of scale and degree. We need a full and open discussion of the evidence and a mature debate about what the drug laws are for - and whether they doing their job?"
In today's research Prof Nutt has criticised the government's 'precautionary principle', used by the former home secretary Jackie Smith to justify her decision to reclassify cannabis from a class C to a class B drug.
He says that by erring on the side of caution, politicians 'distort' and 'devalue' research evidence. "This leads us to a position where people really don't know what the evidence is," he writes.
Prof Nutt even went as far as to say some researchers having been wrong about drugs, "sometimes having to retract the articles".
He also made clear that while cannabis is a "harmful drug", he points out its usage fell when it was reclassified to class C from class B, and he points out that there is "a relatively small risk" of psychotic illness following cannabis use.
Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies added: "Prof Nutt's briefing gives us an insight into what drugs policy might look like if it was based on the research evidence, rather than political posturing and moralistic positioning."
Some of Prof Nutt's recommendations include:
1. Stopping the 'artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as non-drugs'.
2. Improving the public's general understanding of relative harms. He had previously compared the risks of taking ecstasy over the risks of horse-riding, because media reporting 'gives the impression that ecstasy is a much more dangerous drug than it is'.
3. The provision of 'more accurate and credible' information on drugs and the harms they cause.