Earlier today researchers at Bristol University published “a landmark paper” that finds that alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous than many illegal drugs, including ecstasy and pot.
To anyone who didn’t already know that ecstasy doesn’t give standers-by second-hand cancer or cause people to start fights, the study breaks the shocking news that while (illegal) coke and heroin are ranked most harmful, they’re followed closely by (not illegal) barbiturates, alcohol, and tobacco. Pot comes later, and ecstasy way after that.
The real news here is that all the experts agreed that current substance classification is wack. BU’s David Nutt hopes that the study will lead to a change in the prevailing “ill thought-out and arbitrary” system by knocking some sense into those on the losing side of the war on drugs.
—Nicole McClelland
