• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Lancet study, alcohol scores as more harmful than heroin and crack

HansMustermann said:
Oh, wow, cocaine increases the risk of infarct by about 4... unlike smoking, which increases it by the same amount (actually, 2 to 5 times depending on which study you trust) and is legal.

And smoking has a dozen other bad effects, and causes 400,000 deaths a year in the USA alone. And I mean including such bad effects ranging from the obvious ones like cancer or emphysema to stuff like reducing bone density, so if you're a post-menopause smoking woman, yeah, you may not be among those 400,000 dead, but might just get a fractured hip or pelvis instead.

But yeah, everything has its drawbacks, including a big mac with mayo. But compared to other stuff which is legal and advertised on billboards, well, I'm not particularly convinced it's bad enough to make me glad that my tax money goes into putting crack users in jail.
Click to expand...

I just said that if it was legalized there would be an increase in heart disease, I think you are responding to things I did not say.

I said nothing other than its legalization would likely lead to an increase in heart disease, which would be destructive, but hey if it helps you to work your issues out, by all means keep attacking statements I did not make.
 
Illegal drugs are more harmful because they are illegal. If they were made legal then the harm done would come down.

Plus it would be difficult to work out exactly how harmful illegal drugs are.
 
Well certainly I agree that alcohol is very destructive, I am just not sure about cocaine and methamphetamine, I have no real objection to their legalization, since prescription narcotics are the largest problem in the US. I just wonder about the health effects of cocaine and methamphetamine. I know that heroin is a big scary monster but I do not think that many people would use it that are not already using narcotics any how.
 
!Kaggen said:
Now you know why psychology/psychiatry can't be a science until illegal drugs are legal.

Ok its my turn for the shot :D
Click to expand...
Nah. Wasn't there some research that proved that the hallucinogenics therapy of the 50s and 60s wasn't all that wrong? :confused: (Dr Timothy Leary - you are vindicated, sorta.)
 
I support legalization, across the board. BUT I'd be interested in seeing the factors/questions used in the study. Obviously, I could show objectively that twinkies are more dangerous than any of those drugs, depending on how I (subjectively) choose the questions and weights.
 
Another brill paper from nutt et al.

The main factor that makes alcohol number one is the prevalence of use. If heroin was used by the same number of people that use alcohol this study should show heroin the most harmful.

When I say harmful I should clarify. I am counting two types of harm here. 1) the risk of overdose and instant death 2) long term detrimental health effects.

Oddly alcohols LD50 occurs at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.45%. So, out of 100 people with a blood concentration that high, half of them would die. Typical binge drinkers drink up to 0.1-0.2% on a heavy night. So 3x that amount is very likely to kill you. With heroin its a similar story, the LD50 is about 3x a common recreational dose. However the DRASTIC difference is that ethanol has a large volume and bad taste (with high percentage spirits), so most people end up passing out or not being able to drink any more before reaching this limit. With heroin, if you are injecting it, its kind of all or nothing. All you need to go wrong is to miss a decimal point out, weigh it wrong, tip some in by mistake, and you are dead.

In terms of long term health effects Alcohol is much more generally toxic to the body than heroin is. Alcohol puts strain on your liver, and some of its metabolites are neurotoxic and cause cellular damage when its drunk quickly. Heroin, although very dangerous in overdose, is a remarkably clean drug and is dealt with very well by the body. The brain has developed its own opiate receptors (μ-opioid receptor etc), and opiates are generally very good at activating these systems while leaving others alone. Most other receptor systems are effected to an extent, but its nothing compared to the huge amount of receptors that alcohol seems to hit. Alcohol plays with gaba, serotonin, dopamine, NMDA glutamate receptors, 5HT3 receptors and many more. It has sedative, ataxic and eventually terminal anaesthetic properties. This is why you wont get alcohol prescribed for anything, it would not pass safety tests. Heroin and morphine have passed such tests.
 
Zeuzzz said:
<snip. We know what you said>
Click to expand...


So if we make heroin legal and make it easy to work out the right dose, then overdoses would be rare. As you say, long term, Alcohol is more toxic.

In order words the main danger of heroin is the fact that it is illegal. As I said, make it legal and alcohol would still be more dangerous than heroin.
 
I wonder if they compare equal number of cohorts that 1. smoke crack and 2. drink alcohol

The study doesnt make sense. If you have 1. 1000 people who smoke crack / heroin and 2. 1000 people that drink alcohol, are you saying the health of alcohol users is worse then the heroine use.

There is not a single metric that would be worse in the 1000 alcohol users.

If you look at the "ACCUMULATED" affect it is not comparable because there are more alcohol users.

What a dumb study, was this a peer reviewed journal, sounds like pop psychology.
 
Elf Grinder 3000 said:
I wonder if they compare equal number of cohorts that 1. smoke crack and 2. drink alcohol

The study doesnt make sense. If you have 1. 1000 people who smoke crack / heroin and 2. 1000 people that drink alcohol, are you saying the health of alcohol users is worse then the heroine use.

There is not a single metric that would be worse in the 1000 alcohol users.

If you look at the "ACCUMULATED" affect it is not comparable because there are more alcohol users.

What a dumb study, was this a peer reviewed journal, sounds like pop psychology.
Click to expand...
Heroin, as far as I know, has no permanent degenerative effects. The damage is gotten from bad heroin, and dirty syringes leading to infections. The risk associated with it is mostly overdosing from increased tolerance achieved by poor dosing, made more difficult by the fact that the heroin is probably diluted and contaminated.

Alcohol, on the other hand, pretty much wrecks your brain if consumed to any large extent, what you would expect of a typical "drunk".
 
rjh01 said:
So if we make heroin legal and make it easy to work out the right dose, then overdoses would be rare. As you say, long term, Alcohol is more toxic.

In order words the main danger of heroin is the fact that it is illegal. As I said, make it legal and alcohol would still be more dangerous than heroin.
Click to expand...

Caveat, controling the dose...
 
TubbaBlubba said:
Alcohol, on the other hand, pretty much wrecks your brain if consumed to any large extent, what you would expect of a typical "drunk".
Click to expand...

The greater damage to the body is usually in the liver and and to the nerves from the poor diet (the lack of B vitamin and nerve damage), I knew a major alocoholic who had no 'wet brain', he drank very heavily but he also ate a balanced diet. Now he probably did have liver problems.
 
Dancing David said:
The greater damage to the body is usually in the liver and and to the nerves from the poor diet (the lack of B vitamin and nerve damage), I knew a major alocoholic who had no 'wet brain', he drank very heavily but he also ate a balanced diet. Now he probably did have liver problems.
Click to expand...

Agreed!

The main point is that out of 1000 people, how many are drunks? Maybe 5%.

How many of heroin users "have a problem", probably about 90%
 
Elf Grinder 3000 said:
Agreed!

The main point is that out of 1000 people, how many are drunks? Maybe 5%.

How many of heroin users "have a problem", probably about 90%
Click to expand...

Do you have any evidence for this ?

From this source http://www.nida.nih.gov/researchreports/heroin/heroin2.html the figure is 57.4%. Not that I'm advocating the use of heroin or suggesting that it's harmless.

You could have also read either the news report, or a point I made earlier in the thread which pointed out:

- These were not equally sized cohorts
- The assessment of harm was multi faceted
- The study stated that with equal numbers of users Heroin would have grater harm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom