The government is to be urged to consider a controversial plan to reclassify drugs according to the harm they do. The new ranking system would see alcohol placed high on the scale because of its links to violence and car accidents. Tobacco, estimated to cause 40 per cent of all hospital illnesses, would also come before the class-A drug ecstasy. However, there is no suggestion that alcohol and tobacco should be banned. The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce's commission on illegal drugs, communities and public policy has been examining what it believes is a 'serious misfit between the law relating to drugs and the way in which drugs are actually used by members of society'. </IMG>The commission, which includes John Yates, the Metropolitan Police's assistant commissioner, has heard evidence from experts and charities in a bid to find ways of making the UK's drugs laws more effective. It has highlighted a study carried out by a team led by Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, that suggests classification should not be linked to penalties for drug possession but rather the relative risks involved in taking them. The study of 20 drugs - both legal and illegal - weighed up their physical harm, their relative addictiveness and the impact they have on wider society, to produce a new 'rational' league table. Blakemore suggests current drugs laws are outdated. 'The system has evolved in an unsystematic way from somewhat arbitrary foundations with seemingly little scientific basis. We suggest a new system for evaluating the risks of individual drugs that is based as far as possible on facts and scientific knowledge. It could form the basis of a new classification scheme for the Misuse of Drugs Act.' The Drugs league table Drugs assessed in order of danger 1 Heroin 2 Cocaine 3 Barbiturates 4 Street methadone 5 Alcohol 6 Ketamine 7 Benzodiazepine 8 Amphetamines 9 Tobacco 10 Buprenorphine 11 Cannabis 12 Solvents 13 4-MTA 14 LSD 15 Methylphenidate 16 Anabolic steroids 17 GHB 18 Ecstasy 19 Alkyl nitrates 20 Khat http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2026205,00.html
You have to be fucking kidding me. You mean to tell me that Solvents, 4-MTA, LSD, Methylphenidate, Anabolic steroids, GHB, X, Alkyl nitrates, and Khat are better for me than good ole mary jane? Id love to see someone try and explain that...
yea thats bullshit. although i'm not surprised at all by the title of the thread, that alcohol and tobacco are deadlier than E. Wonder where psylocin would be on this list.
Yep its their fault that they allow tobacco use which is useless I've been smoking for 5 years now and never done me any good and anyway they know the shit kills 1000 people a day and cannabis is harmless. All about the money. Welcome to America
isnt cannabis the #1 cash crop in the us? If they were all about the money they would legalize and tax that shit.
Its the greatest crop in the world believe it or not. Though it would ruin the tobacco industries, alcohol industries, textile industries, pharmaceutical industries, and so on. Basically they make more money off it being illegal than it would be legal. If it were legal people would be growing it and its easy to grow and they would make nothing.