Pubdate: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2010 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Amy Minsky, Postmedia News ALCOHOL MORE DANGEROUS THAN CRACK OR HEROIN, U.K. STUDY FINDS Alcohol is more dangerous than such illegal drugs as crack cocaine and heroin, a British study has found. Researchers compared several drugs -- including alcohol, ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine and heroin -- against each other and measured the effects on both the individual and society. In terms of the effects on the individual, the British experts analyzed how addictive each drug is, and how much damage it causes to the body. In terms of a drug's effect on society, the researchers analyzed such factors as how much it costs the health care and prison systems. Overall, alcohol was the "most harmful" drug, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Heroin, crack and methamphetamine were found to be the most harmful to the individual. Alcohol, heroin, and crack were the most harmful to others. A Canadian expert said he is not surprised by the findings, and expects the results would be similar if the study was conducted in Canada. "Alcohol dwarfs those other drugs," said Dr. Marvin Krank, an addictions expert from the department of psychology at University of B.C. Krank said the accessibility of alcohol weighs largely in its ability to cause so much damage. In one of his studies, Krank and his colleagues followed 1,300 Canadian students for three years. During the most recent survey, when the students were in Grade 11, researchers found that 80 per cent of the students said they had drunk alcohol within the past year, and that 60 per cent had been drunk within the same time frame. "It's so widely available, it's socially accepted; and in our college campuses, it's considered a rite of passage," he said. "Certainly, having drugs illegal makes them more difficult to obtain and putting a stigma on them makes them less likely to be used." The British research, published Monday in the medical journal Lancet, established a grading system in which each drug received a grade between zero and 100. When considering the overall effect of the drug -- both the harm on an individual and on society as a whole -- alcohol scored 72 points, while heroin and crack scored 55 and 54 respectively. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake