Researchers: Alcohol Health Risks Underestimated, Marijuana Relatively Safe

schwit1 writes Compared to other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance (abstract), followed by heroin and cocaine.

Comments

FFS

[fyngyrz]

This is only news to those who have had their head in the ground, listening to fox news and government shills.

Re:FFS

[sfcat]

I don't think so. In university some pharmacy or chemistry guys could scrounge pure ethanol. (98 or 99%.) Screwdrives with that were nasty.

But nobody became addicted to that after 1 or 2 dozes, have they? Heroin, on the other hand, is so addictive, a decent percentage of humans get hooked after only a few dozes.

If that was really the case then people who were given morphine drips in hospitals would have high rates of addiction after leaving the hospital. But this doesn't happen. People who get addicted to Opioids either are in constant, on-going pain (due to injury or other reason) or are purely recreational users who are likely responding to external stresses. Basically, the entire model of addiction you are using is wrong and the numbers on addiction bear this out quite clearly. And before you tell me about "soldier's sickness" after the Civil war, remember that most of those soldiers had on-going, serious pain management issues (due to missing limbs and poor quality surgery at the time). This is why our "war on drugs" has been such a monumental failure, our basic model of addiction is wrong and leads you to believe non-sense (like your post). Heroin is certainly addictive but addiction is a response to stress and pain, not a moral failing or a bio-chemical crutch. A better model is provided by the Rat Park research. Policy using this model as a basis will be much more effective if for no other reason than its a far more accurate model of how humans behave than the practically medieval way we deal with addiction right now.

Re:FFS

[MillionthMonkey]

The same journal has a study showing pot-smoking teens are 60% less likely to finish high school than ones who don't.

I would suspect alcohol also has an undesirable effect on high school graduation rates.

Re:FFS

[AK Marc]

That's why "pure" heroine and professional administration eliminate OD. A hardened user that makes up his usual dose, and it's "borrowed" by a new user is how so many new users OD. That and the users that are used to one cheap line from one dealer, who switch to a more pure one, and OD from that. OD is caused by the illegality of it. Alcohol OD is caused by it being a poison. A touch of arsenic isn't deadly, nor is a touch of rat poison. But you don't want to use them regularly to unconsciousness, as so many do with alcohol.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Heroin is the same chemical formula as diamorphine which is widely administered intravenously in hospitals for severe pain management. There might be contamination in heroin sold on streets which could change its properties but other than that there is no reason to consider one more stronger than another.

Re:FFS

[dclydew]

Later studies (2013) debunked the older studies (2011 and before) that marijuana causes schizophrenia in teens. A Harvard study which included pot smokers and their families (both with and without psychotic illness). The data indicates that if you're genetically predisposed to psychotic illness, you're likely to have psychotic illness and marijuana may have an effect on onset age. If you're not genetically predisposed to psychotic illness, then you're not likely to have a psychotic illness, even if you're a teenage stoner. It appears that young people with genetic predisposition to psychotic illness may seek out self-medication with marijuana, but the numbers show a very strong correlation with family traits and no statistically significant correlation with Marijuana use.

http://www.schres-journal.com/...

That's not to say that Marijuana is completely without risks, especially in adolescents with a predisposition to genetic or psychological issues. However, most recent studies do seem to indicate that without the predisposition, 'harm' is relatively limited. In adults, most recent studies indicate no long term effects at all.

Its a shame that the government shut down research on marijuana for so many decades. Who knows how many people could have been helped if doctors had accurate information.

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Please account for the fact that the United Kingdom frequently prescribes diamorphine (heroin) in place of morphine. This is one of the "other opioids" being used for chronic medical conditions that you've mentioned, yet pain patients in the UK aren't facing significantly different addiction rates than those of other Western countries.

Also, having in the past been addicted to various opioids for a number of years, morphine delivers a "pharmacologically intense pleasure signal" just fine. It may not have the rush of heroin, but the enduring high is essentially the same, given that heroin is primarily and rapidly metabolized into morphine, anyhow.

I'll leave you with this Wikipedia quote: "However, this perception is not supported by the results of clinical studies comparing the physiological and subjective effects of injected heroin and morphine in individuals formerly addicted to opioids; these subjects showed no preference for one drug over the other. Equipotent injected doses had comparable action courses, with no difference in subjects' self-rated feelings of euphoria, ambition, nervousness, relaxation, drowsiness, or sleepiness."

Re:FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

You are incorrectly equating heroin to morphine.

It's the same. (It's in the Esters of morphine category.)

Heroin is both a stronger opioid and more short-acting, making it more addictive.

No, it's basically identical. You're drawing false distinctions between two different names for the same thing. Hospitals use diamorphine all the time.

Not what it sounds like

[pla]

FWIW, TFA talks about the therapeutic index (LD50 vs effective dose) of these drugs, not their long-term effects.

So no, this doesn't add more information to the "alcohol is good for you this week / alcohol is bad for you next week" debate. Just saying that we typically drink a significant fraction of the amount it would take to kill us.

title should be: "chance to overdose"

[placerburner]

Using their science, I'm sure tobacco would be even "safer" than weed.
Sure, their facts might be correct - but they are extremely skewed, it's not based on overall safety or mortality rates.

Re:Ratio..?

[gurps_npc]

That's simply not true.

But there are quite a few substances people think are 'harmless' that if you consume more than the normal dose you can kill yourself.

Chief on the list is salt substitute. Many people buy the 'low sodium salt substitute" Potassium Chloride to replace table salt Sodium Chloride. But it is the exact same substance used by several states to execute death penalty cases.

Nut meg is also up there, along with our friend Vitamin A

All three of those substances are typically sold to consumers in containers that, if used all at once, can kill you.

Alcohol is better for you than water

[viperidaenz]

Woman drinks 30 - 40 glasses of water and dies. * http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

You're 'supposed' to drink 8 glasses a day. A 5x increase of water intake can lead to death.

Women are 'supposed' to limit themselves to 2 standard drinks per day. Drinking 10 standard drinks does not result in death.