Drug Dangerousness
Anybody who has read my past entries, knows how I feel about smoking bans, and how stupid I think it is to bad one "harmful drug" from public places, while totally ignoring another. Of course, there are many other things in this world that will hurt you, but most of them that are included on this list are already illegal.
Would somebody please tell my why there are so many people against smoking in public places, when we allow the free flow of alcohol?
The UK goverment commissioned psychopharmacologist Professor David Nutt and neuroscientist Professor Colin Blakemore to rank recreational drugs by their dangerousness.
The list has just been published on August 1st in The Independent and gives some surprising results. The drugs were ranked by ratings which took into account a
combination of their physical damage, social harm and addictive
properties.
In rank order of harmfulness:
1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbituates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines (e.g. Vallium)
8. Amphetamines
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate (Ritalin)
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkyl Nitrites (poppers)
20. Khat
Though both of them are on the list, notice "where" on the list alcohol is, in relation to tobacco. These "anti-smoking" hypocrites shouldn’t try shooting down one unhealthy lifestyle, in favor of another. The other being even "more" dangerous, according to this study.
I absolutely agree with this Tom.
I’m really quite tired of being thought the devil because I smoke.
Smokers are treated like second hand citizens and yet people are allowed to get completely wasted and do far more harm (i.e. drinking and driving).
Arthur
I totally agree. Hopefully someday people will start suing the alcohol companies like they did with tobacco. It causes more health and social problems than tobacco, yet no one says anything.
If you go by this list, we should get rid of smoking and allow LSD, steroids, and ecstasy. I think that alcohol and tobacco should be outlawed. Drinking and driving causes major harm, but smoking cigaretes causes major health problems, and not just for the smoker. Ban both of them. If the federal government can outlaw harmful substances, they can get rid of both of these things.
Brent
Show me a guy that needs to drink beer, or any alcohol, and I’ll show you a guy that is weak, insecure, and ignorant.
Tell me one redeeming value that alcohol provides. Same goes for tobacco. Both seem to have no positive qualities.
y’all are dumb, i smoke and i like smoke free establishments, it is a cleaner atmosphere. yes drinking is bad if some idiot gets behind the wheel, but while at a bar my drinking doesn’t affect your health. think about it.
Thank you for your keen sense of knowing what “dumb” is, Matt, and name calling.
The problem with these dumb drunk people is that they don’t think they effect anybody unless they get behind the wheel.
There’s report after report that describes how “your” drinking effects other people’s health:
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/alcohol.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/ac.txt
http://www.brook.edu/press/review/spring96/dilulio.htm
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/toolkits/ar00.htm
http://www.drugstrategies.org/keepingscore1999/crime.html
http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/costs/a/aa980415.htm
Tell me that you’ve never met an angry drunk, Matt. Tell me that you’ve never seen anybody leave the bar and get in thier car. Tell me that you’ve never heard of people getting shot by drunk people at parties. After you tell me that, tell me how banning smoking from all businesses is going to save the victims of alcohol related deaths.
Why isn’t it hypocritical, in your opinion, to ban one and not the other? With alcohol, deaths are fast. How long does it take second hand smoke to kill?
Please, if you’re going to comment, please have a little more of an open mind. We have enough narrow-minded people taking away this country’s first ammendment. That’s a topic for another time, though.
Please proofread your entries, your mispellings are a distraction. bad instead of ban, thier instead of their, make you hard to take seriously.
You’re missing the point; yes-bad things can happen with drunk people behind the wheel as previously stated and angry drunks etc. The point being made is if I’m sitting next to you in a bar or other establishment and am drinking alcohol I am not deteriorating your health causing you to get cancer or things of that nature. Call me a hypocrite, whatever, maybe I came over a little strong calling y’all dumb but if your going to have a rebuttal on a valid argument know what that argument is about.
Matt, it is a valid agument. Alcohol effects other people! The fact is that you “won’t” be sitting next to me in a bar, but you do have to leave the bar. Did you read any of those reports?
Do you agree or disagree that banning one and not the other is hypocritical?
Shiver: If you’re distracted by “one” misspelled word, and can’t take somebody’s opinion seriously because of it, I feel sorry for you. I suppose I shouldn’t take what you said, seriously, either, since you misspelled “misspellings”. Get over it! I’m not that pety.
Didn’t I say “please have a little more of an open mind” in my previous comment? Correcting people about misspelled words on the internet is about as closed as you can get.