Is Alcohol Worse Than Heroin?

When you think of the world's most dangerous drugs, you likely picture substances like heroin or crack cocaine. But a landmark study published in The Lancet suggests that the most damaging substance to society might actually be the one sitting in your liquor cabinet.

In 2010, Professor David Nutt and the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs set out to rank 20 drugs based on scientific evidence rather than political classification. Using a method called multicriteria decision analysis, they scored substances on 16 distinct criteria, ranging from mortality and dependence to crime and economic cost.

The Shocking Results

The findings challenged the status quo of drug policy. When combining harm to the user with harm to others, the study found:

• Alcohol was ranked the most harmful drug overall, with a weighted score of 72 out of 100.
• It significantly outranked Heroin (55) and Crack Cocaine (54).
• While drugs like crack and heroin were rated most dangerous to the individual user, alcohol was deemed far more dangerous to others and society at large.

Harm to users vs. Harm to others

Science vs. Law

Perhaps the most provocative takeaway was the disconnect between these harm scores and the UK’s legal classification system. Legal substances like alcohol and tobacco (score 26) were found to be more harmful than Class A drugs like Ecstasy (9) and LSD (7).

The authors concluded that the current drug laws are arbitrary and flawed, arguing that a true harm reduction strategy must aggressively target alcohol alongside illegal narcotics.

Want to see the full breakdown? Read the original study here.