<story><title>Alcohol &apos;more harmful than heroin&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>swombat</author><text>Here&apos;s some background. Nutt initially released this scale in 2009 and was sacked by the government over it:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6894710.ece&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article68947...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Several other members of the drugs advisory board resigned in protest. It&apos;s a typical case of the government asking scientists to come up with evidence and then refusing to see the evidence when it is presented. &quot;You got us the wrong evidence! Get us another truth!&quot;&lt;p&gt;At the bottom of this article, you can find the suggested classifcation by harm:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6474053.stm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6474053.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, the point is not to ban alcohol, but to have a more mature debate about drugs (and possibly to unban relatively harmless drugs such as LSD, Ecstasy, Cannabis...)</text></comment>
<story><title>Alcohol &apos;more harmful than heroin&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>corin_</author><text>That ranking is pretty ridiculous.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Prof Nutt told the BBC: &quot;Overall, alcohol is the most harmful drug because it&apos;s so widely used.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;Crack cocaine is more addictive than alcohol but because alcohol is so widely used there are hundreds of thousands of people who crave alcohol every day, and those people will go to extraordinary lengths to get it.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;By that logic it&apos;s also more harmful to drive a car than to cut open your chest, pull out your heart and eat it?</text></comment>