ALCOHOL MORE DANGEROUS THAN CRACK, HEROIN: U.K. STUDY

Alcohol is more dangerous than such illegal drugs as crack cocaine and
heroin, a British study has found.

Researchers stacked several drugs -- including alcohol, ecstasy,
marijuana, cocaine and heroin -- against each other and measured the
effects on both the individual and society.

In terms of the effects on the individual, the British experts
analyzed how addictive each drug is, and how much damage it causes to
the body.

In terms of a drug's effect on society, the researchers analyzed such
factors as how much it costs the health-care and prison systems.

Overall, alcohol was the "most harmful" drug, followed by heroin and
crack cocaine.

Heroin, crack and methamphetamine were found to be the most harmful to
the individual. Alcohol, heroin and crack were the most harmful to
others.

A Canadian expert said he is not surprised by the findings and expects
the results would be similar if the study was conducted in Canada.

"Alcohol dwarfs those other drugs," said Dr. Marvin Krank, an
addictions expert at the University of British Columbia. Krank said
the accessibility of alcohol weighs largely in its ability to cause so
much damage.

In one of his studies, Krank and his colleagues followed 1,300
Canadian students for three years. During the most recent survey, when
the students were in Grade 11, researchers found that 80 per cent of
the students said they had consumed alcohol with the past year, and
that 60 per cent had been drunk within the same time frame.

"It's so widely available, it's socially accepted; and in our college
campuses, it's considered a rite of passage," he said. "Certainly,
having drugs illegal makes them more difficult to obtain and putting a
stigma on them makes them less likely to be used."

But prohibition didn't change the public's opinion toward alcohol, he
noted.

The British research, published Monday in the medical journal Lancet,
established a grading system in which each drug received a grade
between zero and 100. When considering the overall effect of the drug
- -- both the harm on an individual and on society as a whole -- alcohol
scored 72 points, while heroin and crack scored 55 and 54
respectively.