Alcohol is a more dangerous drug than both crack and heroin when the combined harms to the user and to others are assessed, British scientists said on Monday.

Presenting a new scale of drug harm that rates the damage to users themselves and to wider society, the scientists rated alcohol the most harmful overall and almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco.

"It is intriguing to note that the two legal drugs assessed -- alcohol and tobacco -- score in the upper segment of the ranking scale, indicating that legal drugs cause at least as much harm as do illegal substances," Nutt, who was formerly head of the influential British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said in a statement about the study.

The World Health Organisation estimates that risks linked to alcohol cause 2.5 million deaths a year from heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides and cancer -- accounting for 3.8 percent of all deaths.

Drugs were then scored out of 100, with 100 given to the most harmful drug and zero indicating no harm at all.

The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72, followed by heroin with 55 and crack with 54.

Among some of the other drugs assessed were.....

crystal meth (33),
cocaine (27),
tobacco (26),
amphetamine or speed (23),
cannabis (20),
benzodiazepines, such as Valium (15),
ketamine (15),
methadone (14),
mephedrone (13),
ecstasy (9),
anabolic steroids (9),
LSD (7)
and magic mushrooms (5).

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/7743...drugs-euro.htm