Alcohol most harmful drug

Honestly this doesnt surprise me at all. I personally am on the side where I feel that marijuana should be legalized and alcohol illegal. I think that the impairment that alcohol gives is far more dangerous than the impairment from marijuania, I only feel this way because Ive done both.......maybe the goverment will realize how much money they could make off the taxing of marijuana....I can see the future now, "Almost all national debt gone due to legalization and sale of marijuana"...If only...if only..

Yet they tell you red wine will lower your chances of a heart attack, whiskey thins the blood and guinness is good to raise you iron levels

so really what do they want us to think and believe when there is so much conflicting evidence

same for maijiana its a painkiller but to much of it will turn you parinoid

any drug is harmful to us but in all honesty id class the likes of crack cocaine and heroin a lot more harmful one hit and you risk instant death

Unfortunately I can vouch for the devastating damage alcohol can do.
There was a similar study done over a decade ago that compared the effects of heron and alcohol on addicted people. Alcohol came out far ahead....
As a recovering alcoholic, i can say from experience that it can destroys everything in a person's life and in the lives of everyone that comes into that person's world. I've been sober 14 years and I'm still trying to repair the damage I've done. Some of which can never be fixed...

I think it's everything of what we eat and drink, but done in moderation your fine. But over do it and your bound to do some damage.

Where i used to work, there was an old lady lived opposite. Without fail she would have 2 glasses of sherry a day and she lived to be 98!

Hmmm, I wonder how did they link cancer to alcohol???? I mean, I understand that the people who died of cancer that they counted in this study probably were alcoholics, but can they say with absolute certainty that alcohol alone is what caused the cancer, and not say alcohol, a genetic predisposition, and other carcinogens the person was exposed to, just as an example?
Road accidents and liver disease, absolutely but as far as the others, it's kinda hard for me to understand

I am not surprised that alcohol is the most harmful drug to society. I too think marijuana should be legal. My dad always told me (half jokingly) to smoke weed rather than get drunk if I had to do one or the other

The study doesn't surprise me in the least. Alcoholism runs in my family and I've seen it destroy lives both close to me and many other people I know. I think when you couple together the fact that it's physically addictive with the need for people to escape from reality, and the obsessive tendencies in people, its very dangerous.

I'm rooting for the legalization of pot in California and hope it spreads to the rest of the country. If people are going to turn to a drug as a vice (as it's obvious people will do), then at least partake in one that isn't physically addictive.

"in moderation" sounds good and is possible for most people but alcoholics have a disease and cannot drink in moderation.

My youngest sister (44) and my oldest sister (54) are alcoholics. I don't drink, ever, as the disease is in my blood and my genes, and I fear it.

Obviously if your an alcoholic you can't do moderation, so my post was for those who can control what they have.

Is it worse than hardened drugs, i'm not sure?

I've noticed many alcoholics are very prone to denial. The worst ones have no memory of turning into nasty mean/violent drunks when a night is particularly bad. Denial mucks up the chaos factor and recovery issues in alcoholism, imo. The fact that it's legal confuses the alcoholic even more, imo

From what little I know about heroin, it generally does not make a person mean/nasty/violent, whereas alcohol can. I know very little about crack other than it being a portable cousin of cocaine and can lead to insanity after the 1st or 2nd "high"

I like a few drinks when i'm out with friends a couple of times a month, and 2 glasses on a weekend.

If someone was to say i couldn't have a drink i can do that easily because my life doesn't revolve around alcohol. But with what i know about cocaine and heroin it can hook you quite quickly. I've seen pictures of dead heroin addicts where their parents gave permission to the press to publish to shock teenagers of what can happen.

I heard some years ago that if whisky and it's many variants were to be introduced today, they'd be regulated as a narcotic. It appears that may have been right all along.

On one hand, there is no doubt that alcohol destroys more on a grand scale than the other drugs because it is legal and socially acceptable. It's certainly acceptable to serve wine with a nice dinner, or finish off the evening with Brandy, Scotch or Port. I hardly think most people would have the same reaction if someone offered spoons and needles with black tar heroin as a way to top off the evening. Alcohol is available, it is cheap, and it isn't looked down upon until you cross that fine line. There are certainly more alcoholics in this world by far than heroin or meth addicts so the widescale community damage isn't even a contest.

However, with all things being equal and comparing the drugs included in this study side by side I cannot believe that alcohol would come out as the worst of the bunch. Alcohol vs. heroin? vs. cocaine? vs. meth? Alcohol, at it's worst, would be comparable to the best of the others listed here.

Note: I don't include marijuana in this list. As I saw on a sign once... "Man made booze, God made pot. Who do you trust?"

I completly agree with Susan everything in moderation, but by some of your standards from previous discussions on alcohol im an alcoholic, i have a drink after i finish my shift at work i enjoy a few glasses of wine on a weekend, i dont need to have it but i like to

but i can pretty much guarntee if i started taking heroin i wouldnt be able to stop.....i also know that alcoholics cant stop i know that my mother is a recovering alcoholic i know the damage it has done to her body and mind but seeing what she has done to herself i know ill never be like that i know when to stop i have self control

We already tried criminalizing alcohol. That's why there are two constitutional amendments involving alcohol. And I'd say our experiment with criminalizing most other drugs is about to come to the same conclusion.

On the other hand...are we willing to abandon a certain percentage of our population to drug use by making it legal? That is the stand of the Libertarian Party.

I think the issue with alcohol is that it is readily available and socially acceptable, it's like a silent ninja assasin it's there the whole time but you don't know you're in danger til BAM! I think we all know someone who drinks too much at parties and we all laugh and joke about "Bob getting drunk again" but we don't know what happens at home, how this person's drinking is effecting their family. Harder drugs, on the other hand, are not acceptable in polite society. There is more pressure on those people to sober up.... also, the vast majority of crack and heroin users aren'y snorting it in their middle-class suburban living rooms, but alcohol on the other hand.....

Another diffrence is that the damage caused by alcohol is not always done by an alcoholic- one night at the bar, a little too much to drink but they can handle it, get in their car and wind up killing someone. Not only is the victim and their family's life destroyed, but now that drunk driver will be going to prison and leaving their family behind

I whole-heartedly believe that alcohol is the most harmful drug, belleandme is spot on, alcohol can destroy everything. I grew up with an alcoholic father (sober now for 25+ years) and my uncle is also an alcoholic, still drinking unfortunately My Dad is very involved with AA and I know a lot of his friends from the program, I see what their drinking has done to their lives and their family and I know about the struggles of people trying to get sober. Now, i do drink on occassion, but because of my background, alcohol has never really been part of my life so I'm not one to have a random glass of wine or cocktail in the evening.

Alcohol is severely under-estimated and that is what I believe makes it the most harmful drug

It wouldn't surprise me if I heard or read that alcohol, from a biochemistry standpoint, is worse or whatever you wanna call it compared to heroin. According to the show "Intervention" (great show by the way), heroin is like a 700-pound blanket where a person won't even care if the room's on fire. They'd say "Room's on fire? Mmmm. Comfortable." and not even open their eyes. I have no first-hand knowledge of heroin but I do know alcoholics who don't even remember the stuff they say/do when drunk. I don't know the official name given to that--- memory "lapse"? memory "erasure"? - But it's scary in my opinion. If you can't even remember what you said/did less than 24 hours ago, yikes.