Prof Nutt told the BBC: "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."
By that logic it's also more harmful to drive a car than to cut open your chest, pull out your heart and eat it?
The point of the study is the government should address drugs based on the problems they do represent, not on the problems they might perhaps theoretically some day represent.
Alcohol and tobacco do kill tens of thousands of people every year. Ecstasy and LSD and Cannabis kill maybe a dozen people every year all together, and usually in combination with other drugs. Yet there are considerably fewer resources allocated to fighting alcohol and tobacco use than the latter.
That said, the chemicals themselves are unlikely to cause death. This, obviously, is not the same as "will definitely not have any unpleasant consequence".
"Coroner: Aragon High School student took LSD before falling to death in Canada"
10/23/2010 12:01:00 AM PDT
"A 17-year-old Aragon High School student was under the influence of LSD when he plunged to his death during a trip to Canada in June with teachers and fellow classmates, according to a British Columbia coroner's report.
"Daniel Cho and two friends took the drug while they were on a bus headed from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, according to the coroner. The boys were with more than 100 other Aragon students headed to Canada as part of a musical exchange program.
"When the group made a stop at a popular tourist spot called the Capilano Suspension Bridge on the evening of June 6, Cho climbed over a 4-foot-high fence and fell 100 feet into a ravine below.
"The coroner has ruled his death an accident, and Canadian police won't file any criminal charges in connection with the case."
The burden of responsibility is on the person claiming that it is responsible for death. LSD, the substance, has not killed anyone. Someone is welcome to disprove this.
The effects of LSD, the substance, certainly have.
The substance itself does not cause an "overdose" and the same is true of cannabis (at least for any ingestible amount), but it would be disingenuous to claim they have not caused deaths.
No, the burden of responsibility is on people not to say stuff that's trivially disproven with a simple Google search. Though I'm guessing most HN commenters already know the story of Frank Olsen without even having to do one.
How many injuries and/or deaths are caused by car crashes in a year? And how many by people eating their own heart? OK, so, now you've got a billion pounds to spend on a marketing campaign, are you going to target driving or heart-eating?
I agree that the issues which affect more people should be a bigger focus from the government. I don't, however, think they should be called "more harmful".
More harmful to society as a whole. Not more harmful to the affected individuals.
Blame BBC for an ambiguous headline.
The conclusion of the study should be that the government should spend more effort fighting alcoholism than LSD abuse. Most likely, it already does. The conclusion should not be that young people should start experimenting with LSD instead of alcohol.
Prof Nutt told the BBC: "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."
By that logic it's also more harmful to drive a car than to cut open your chest, pull out your heart and eat it?