Alcohol more harmful than ecstasy and LSD, claims expert

Alcohol and tobacco cause more harm than illegal drugs such as cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, according to a new briefing paper out today.

In the paper, from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London, Professor David Nutt proposes that all drugs - legal and illegal - should be ranked according to how much harm they cause.

"Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth.

"Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively," Professor Nutt said.

Professor Nutt, who is also chairman of the government's advisory committee on the misuse of drugs, disagreed with the decision of former Home Secretary Jackie Smith to upgrade cannabis from a class C to a class B drug.

"By erring on the side of caution, politicians distort and devalue research evidence. This leads us to a position where people really don't know what the evidence is", he said.

Although Professor Nutt said that cannabis is "a harmful drug", and argues for a "concerted public health response... to drastically reduce its use".

Professor Nutt said that there was "a relatively small risk" of psychotic illness following cannabis use. To prevent one episode of schizophrenia, he says, it would be necessary "to stop 5,000 men aged 20 to 25 from ever using cannabis."

The professor is in favour of downgrading ecstasy from a class A to a class B drug, and repeated his claim that the risks were no greater than riding a horse.

Science also came under fire. There were, he said "some horrific examples where some of the so-called "top" scientific journals have published poor quality research about the harms of drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy, sometimes having to retract the articles.

"No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is one of scale and degree. We need a full and open discussion of the evidence and a mature debate about what the drug laws are for - and whether they doing their job?"

This article was published on Thu 29 October 2009