L'alcool tue, prenez du LSD
The revolutionary students of May '68 nearly brought about the collapse of the DeGaulle government in their desire to overthrow the ancien regime. Spontaneous and disorganized, the revolt disappeared as quickly as it had come. The revolt is perhaps best remembered for its sloganeering wit with lines like "Alcohol kills, take LSD". These days scientists in the UK are inclined to believe such things.
Essentially, scientists in the UK have been lobby the British government that current recreational drug rankings are very arbitrary and don't reflect the actual harm that some drugs can do. For example Heroin and magic mushrooms occupy the same category of danger although it can be easily demonstrated that the two drugs are radically different in effects and harm. The rankings only represent the more easily shocked times when certain drugs were banned, rather than the actual relative risks of each drug.
The new ranking (see graph) would rearrange the classification of drugs so that they match scientific research. Heroin, not surprisingly is at the top, but drugs like LSD fall near the bottom, way below drugs like alcohol, tobacco and even cannabis. Alcohol itself rates very highly on the danger scale considering the amount of harm it does.
It's good to see that some nations are rationally reevaluating their drug policies to accurately reflect the amount of harm a drug does or doesn't do. Some drugs should be tightly controlled because they are dangerous (heroin) and some should be legalized because they aren't so dangerous and controlling them is just a waste of money (cannabis). Far too often are drug policies more harmful than they are useful. The amount of effort that has been put into suppressing LSD (it's near impossible to find these days), when far more dangerous and destructive drugs have been pouring into the country via organized crime.
Essentially, scientists in the UK have been lobby the British government that current recreational drug rankings are very arbitrary and don't reflect the actual harm that some drugs can do. For example Heroin and magic mushrooms occupy the same category of danger although it can be easily demonstrated that the two drugs are radically different in effects and harm. The rankings only represent the more easily shocked times when certain drugs were banned, rather than the actual relative risks of each drug.
The new ranking (see graph) would rearrange the classification of drugs so that they match scientific research. Heroin, not surprisingly is at the top, but drugs like LSD fall near the bottom, way below drugs like alcohol, tobacco and even cannabis. Alcohol itself rates very highly on the danger scale considering the amount of harm it does.
It's good to see that some nations are rationally reevaluating their drug policies to accurately reflect the amount of harm a drug does or doesn't do. Some drugs should be tightly controlled because they are dangerous (heroin) and some should be legalized because they aren't so dangerous and controlling them is just a waste of money (cannabis). Far too often are drug policies more harmful than they are useful. The amount of effort that has been put into suppressing LSD (it's near impossible to find these days), when far more dangerous and destructive drugs have been pouring into the country via organized crime.