Alcohol

[Valmave]

Suppose a scientist had just discovered alcohol. Which, if any, drugs classification would it be given ?

[plautus]

None, because if he'd just discovered it he would be too p!ssed to bother!

[Mani_H]

Hi Valmave. If you can check out the report "Drug harms in the UK: a multi-criteria decision analysis" led by Prof David Nutt a few years ago. In a nutshell (pardon the pun) they ranked 20 drugs (legal and illegal) on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. Alcohol was ranked the most harmful drug in Britain, scoring 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54).

[bored0]

prof David Nutt needs to get out more!

[FredPuli43]

Heroin is a Class A drug,so by Professor Nutt's measure, alcohol would be, too. But the government, ignoring the Prof's scientific opinion as usual,might just persuade themselves to make it Class B, on the grounds that alcohol is not as close to being immediately addictive as heroin is.

[jake-the-peg]

What do you base that opinion on fredPuli?

I'm assuming iyou're not a heroin user

[Valmave]

Thanks for all of your thoughts, Cheers !

[Nibble]

An interesting choice of scientific advisor you've chosen to reflect your point of view, as one of his opinions when sacked by the then Government was As for his comments about horse riding being more dangerous than ecstasy, which you quote with such reverence, it is of course a political rather than a scientific point. However, he is a most eminent scientist, who I have an utmost respect for.

[beso]

By the same token, if cars were invented today do you really think they would be allowed to approach each other at over one hundred miles an hour, passing inches apart while carrying substantial quantities of highly explosive liquids?

[Valmave]

in a similar vein, imagine inventing a game where most points are scored by hitting a heavy leather ball towards the spectators without it touching the ground first.