I came across a list of the ten most dangerous drugs that was originally published in a recent issue of the UK medical journal The Lancet. What may be most surprising to some (but not all) of you is that both alcohol and tobacco were listed among those top ten! Dr. Ben Kim posted on it more details on the list. Below is an excerpt:

The following three factors were considered in ranking the harmfulness of each drug that was evaluated:

* Physical harm to the user
* Addictive potential of the drug
* The drug’s overall impact on society

Psychiatrists who specialize in treating addictive behavior and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise were asked to assign a score to each of the three factors listed above for each drug that was evaluated in this study. All told, 20 different drugs were evaluated, including cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD.

Ranked from most to least dangerous, the ten most dangerous substances were deemed to be:

1. Heroin - popular street names include smack, skag, and junk.
2. Cocaine - often referred to as snow, flake, coke, and blow.
3. Barbiturates - popular slang names include yellow jackets, reds, blues, Amy’s, and rainbows.
4. Street Methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine - a powerful hallucinogen, often referred to as Special K.
7. Benzodiazepines - a family of sedative drugs.
8. Amphetamines - known as greenies among baseball players.
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine - also called bupe or subbies.

Read the entire post from Dr. Ben Kim’s site for more drugs and their rankings.


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