How scientists rank drugs from most to least dangerous and why the rankings are flawed

And the illegality of marijuana has also limited research in this field. But while early studies showed some evidence linking marijuana to lung cancer, subsequent studies have debunked that association. Marijuana affects the cardiovascular system, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, but a person can’t fatally overdose on pot like they can with alcohol, Baler said. Perhaps the biggest supporting evidence for this point is a 2010 study published in The Lancet that ranked alcohol as the most dangerous drug in the United Kingdom, surpassing heroin, crack cocaine, and marijuana.

Article Sources:

That roughly translates to cannabis is not directly related to any increase in the chances of death or has a significant impact on your lifespan. It’s also important to remember that there aren’t many high-quality, long-term studies on weed and its effects. Both can also leave you feeling a bit worse for wear the next day, though this is more likely to happen with alcohol. While being intoxicated with weed feels different than being intoxicated with alcohol, the two have roughly the same effect on your cognitive abilities, reflexes, and judgment.

1. Overall, cannabis use can be healthier and less addictive than alcohol use.
2. But alcohol’s crime risk is due to its tendency to make people more aggressive (and more prone to committing crime), while heroin’s crime risk is based on the massive criminal trafficking network behind it.
3. Suffice to say that alcohol causes more deaths due to violence, accidents, car crashes, and disease than cannabis to the point where there are ever-growing statistics tracking these numbers.
4. As a team of pain medicine physicians, anesthesiologists, and surgeons, we knew that there had to be a better way to help patients.

About Medical News Today

Even if two drugs score similarly in Nutt’s analysis, the underlying variables behind the scores can be completely different. For instance, heroin and crack cocaine are fairly close in the rankings. But heroin scores much higher for mortality risk, while crack poses a much bigger risk for mental impairment. That being said, alcohol still faces all of the same aforementioned tolls on your health and risks of addiction. As mentioned, alcohol can cause many different negative effects on your body, most notably the liver. Chronic alcohol use can lead to liver diseases such as fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis, gastritis and pancreatitis.

General Health

They cited strong evidence that drinking alcohol — as little as a glass of wine or beer a day — increases the risk of developing both pre- and postmenopausal breast cancer. But how much does all of this information really tell policymakers or the public? It would matter if marijuana ends up substituting alcohol once pot is legalized (since a safer substance would be replacing a more dangerous one), but the research on that is still early. Again, there isn’t significant data to point to specific deaths caused solely by weed.

For marijuana, some research initially suggested a link between smoking and lung cancer, but that has been debunked. The January report found that cannabis was not connected to any increased risk of the lung cancers or head and neck cancers tied to smoking cigarettes. The review looked at published data from nearly 600 studies that comprised data on 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2016. The results showed that among people of all ages, alcohol was the seventh leading risk factor for deaths in 2016.

People attribute it to be a social lubricant that allows people to stave off social anxiety and be more outgoing and talkative. Alcohol is highly addictive and some people can have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Chronic use of alcohol can cause a physical dependency that will require outside intervention to treat this and help you become sober. Weed can impact your memory and in some severe cases cause or exacerbate schizophrenia or psychosis. Despite there being issues, most issues caused by cannabis can be reversible if you stop using cannabis.

But it doesn’t seem like anyone is taking on this kind of approach — and Nutt’s style of analysis remains popular around the world. Although Nutt couldn’t liquor storage ideas get funding to do an analysis in the US or Canada, he said a similar study is being published later this year assessing drug use in several countries in Europe. The analysis may be flawed, but its simplicity and accessibility have won over many policy circles. Alcohol’s effects on behavior can also lead to more crime, while marijuana use appears to have little-to-no effect. Alcohol is a factor in 40 percent of violent crimes, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. But various studies found marijuana doesn’t make users more aggressive or lead to crime.

High doses of marijuana can also cause temporary psychotic reactions, such as hallucinations and paranoia in some people. Younger people with a family history of schizophrenia are at a higher risk of developing the disorder after using marijuana, seven studies showed. Drinking reduces your inhibitions and can certainly make you feel more relaxed in social situations. But those lower inhibitions can also lead you to engage in risky sexual behavior, studies show. Unprotected sex can increase your risk of catching a sexually transmitted disease or infection and increase your chances for an unplanned pregnancy. One study of more than 19,000 women showed those who drank alcohol in moderation actually weighed less than those who didn’t over 12 years.