Alcohol: The New Heroin?

According to a study published Sunday in The Lancet, you might be better off setting aside that Friday night tequila shot in favor of shooting smack.

(Actually, the study doesn't say that at all, but you wouldn't know it based on the media's coverage.)

The British study looked at 20 popular drugs using 16 criteria and ranked them according to how harmful they were to users and to society. Alcohol was the clear winner on both fronts, beating popular favorites heroin, cocaine and its nasty little brother crack by a wide margin. It's an impressive shift from a 2007 study by the same researchers, where heroin was the clear winner.

The reason for the shift, I believe, is because the new study accounts for pervasiveness of the drugs - and who doesn't like a drink? Sadly, CNN and Fox News brush over this fact. Fox even included this (out of context, I'm guessing) quote from the lead researcher:

"It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," Nutt, who was formerly head of the influential British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said in a statement about the study.

It's not until you get to BBC's story that you also get this additional musing from Prof. Nutt:

"Overall, alcohol is the most harmful drug because it's so widely used. Crack cocaine is more addictive than alcohol but because alcohol is so widely used there are hundreds of thousands of people who crave alcohol every day, and those people will go to extraordinary lengths to get it."

Hmmmm. That's kind of a major take-away. By the way, more people cut themselves with kitchen knives than chainsaws - simply because more people use kitchen knives. I understand that if kitchen knife lacerations were as big an issue as alcoholism, one might be compelled to publish a comparative study about their abuse - but the media needs to report on that in a fair and balanced way. Otherwise, come Thanksgiving, you're going to have a nation of idiots trying to carve the Thanksgiving bird with their Craftsman 42cc.

Well, okay, probably not, but still, there's certainly more than one crackhead out there squatting a little easier in his condemned warehouse/ cozy home, thinking his drug of choice isn't all that bad after all. Provided, of course, he's a crackhead who keeps up with current events.

I'm probably going to have a glass of wine tonight while I'm making diner. Later, after my daughter's gone to sleep, I might have a second glass. That's cool because moderate consumption of alcohol has been shown to have scores of benefits. Conversely, if I shot up or snorted a few lines while putting the lasagna together, it'd make for a very different evening - with no real benefits at the time or in the foreseeable future.

It's like dealing with third world despots. If you're going to attack one, don't prop up the others, because they're all equally willing to blow up your airplanes, kidnap your journalists, and make your life hell.