Jacob Silverman reviews a new book from British scientist David Nutt, Drugs Without the Hot Air, a "rigorous, evidence-based primer on drugs and drug policy that approaches the subject with a goal neatly encapsulated by its subtitle: 'minimizing the harms of legal and illegal drugs'":
Nutt's definition of "harm" is based on sixteen variables that range from drug-specific mortality ("death from poisoning," i.e. an overdose) to drug-related mortality ("deaths from chronic illnesses caused by drug-taking"). He also factors in addiction, effects on mental functioning, harm to others, crime, economic and environmental costs, and loss of relationships. Using this metric, the ICSD rated a number of drugs on a scale of 1 to 100. Psychedelics were in single digits, behind anabolic steroids, while cannabis clocked in at 20. Methamphetamine, heroin, and crack bore respective scores of 33, 54, and 55. Alcohol emerged as the most harmful drug, scoring 72.
Nutt is a social drinker, but his consideration of alcohol is bracing.
One chapter title asks, "If alcohol were discovered today, would it be legal?" and states that the UK is "facing a public-health crisis of immense proportions," with forty thousand alcohol-related deaths per year and billions in health and policing costs. Nutt declares, "There is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption," and adds that "there is no other drug which is so damaging to so many different organ systems in the body." He has similar contempt for tobacco, which, at current rates, will have killed a billion people by 2030.
Read an excerpt from Nutt's book here and an interview with him here.
The Dish 