BRITAIN/INTERNATIONAL: Alcohol 'As Big a Risk As Heroin'

Mar 23, 05:21 AM

Current Headlines: ALCOHOL is ranked almost as harmful as heroin in a controversial new drug classification system proposed by a team of leading scientists.

The class A drug Ecstasy, possession of which can result in a seven-year prison sentence, is placed near the bottom of the league table which lists "harm scores" for different substances.

LSD, another class A drug, is also considered relatively safe despite its powerful hallucinogenic properties.

Cannabis, recently downgraded to class C, occupies a middle position. It is rated more dangerous than Ecstasy, LSD and the dance floor drug GHB, but less harmful than tobacco.

The table, published in The Lancet medical journal, was drawn up by a team of highly respected scientists led by Professor David Nutt, from the University of Bristol, and Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

It is intended to be a model for policy makers which is more scientifically based than the current Misuse of Drugs Act system that attaches "A, B, and C" labels to illicit drugs.

Independent experts, including psychiatrists, chemists and forensic scientists, were invited to rate risks on a four-point scale. Zero denoted "no risk", 1 "some risk", 2 "moderate risk" and 3 "extreme risk".

Scores were combined to produce estimates of harm for each of 20 drugs.

Unsurprisingly, the results placed heroin at the head of the table with an overall "harm score" of 2.7, followed by cocaine which scored 2.3.

But more controversially, alcohol is ranked as the fifth most dangerous drug, scoring just under 2 on the table.

Tobacco is in ninth position, with a score of 1.7.

Ecstasy is listed at number 18 and scores just over 1.1.

Opinion - Page 14

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