preview

View
Add this briefing to your playlist
Download

Professor Nutt is right. Drugs simply aren’t dangerous

Is alcohol the most dangerous drug going? Should social drinkers switch to smoking marijuana? That was the conclusion some might draw from a new report published in The Lancet on November 1. A group of experts, convened by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, a new research group set up by former government advisor David Nutt, assessed the harms caused by a range of drugs – legal and illegal. Its conclusion? That alcohol is more harmful than any other drug, that cannabis, ecstasy, and LSD are relatively harmless, and that current drug policy in most countries bears almost no relation to the dangers of the drugs themselves.