Some research is worth revisiting and 4 years after the UKs Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs developed a system for rating drugs based on harms, the results are as relevant as ever.

Researchers invited specialists in the field of drug and alcohol to meet for an interactive 1 day workshop to score 20 drugs on 16 criteria. Criteria included harms to the individual such as injury and overdose and harms such as crime and breakdown of relationship that affect others.

Drugs were then scored against one another to see which produced, overall, the greatest harm.

Compelling visual comparisons of how each drug stacked up can be found here.

Researchers pointed out that among the limitations of this approach was the fact that only harms were scored. ‘All drugs have some benefits to the user, at least initially; otherwise they would not be used’.

The study also did not factor in harms of pollysubstance use or drugs used for prescription purposes and was limited in its ability to explore harms that are intrinsic to the drug and those that occurred as a result of measures to control the drug. 

Want more? Check out the background to the study and the research itself.