ALCOHOL WORSE THAN ECSTASY ON SHOCK NEW DRUG LIST

Some of Britain's leading drug experts demand today that the
government's classification regime be scrapped and replaced by one
that more honestly reflects the harm caused by alcohol and tobacco.
They say the current ABC system is "arbitrary" and not based on evidence.

The scientists, including members of the government's top advisory
committee on drug classification, have produced a rigorous assessment
of the social and individual harm caused by 20 substances, and
believe this should form the basis of any future ranking.

By their analysis, alcohol and tobacco are rated as more dangerous
than cannabis, LSD and ecstasy.

They say that if the current ABC system is retained, alcohol would be
rated a class A drug and tobacco class B.

"We face a huge problem," said Colin Blakemore, chief executive of
the Medical Research Council and an author of the report, which is
published in the Lancet medical journal. "Drugs ... have never been
more easily available, have never been cheaper, never been more
potent and never been more widely used.

"The policies we have had for the last 40 years ... clearly have not
worked in terms of reducing drug use. So I think it does deserve a
fresh look. The principal objective of this study was to bring a
dispassionate approach to what is a very passionate issue."

David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist at Bristol University and member
of the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) which advises
ministers on drug policy, added: "What we are trying to say is we
should review the penalties in the light of the harms and try to have
a more proportionate legal response.

"The point we are making is that all drugs are dangerous, even the
ones that people know and love and use regularly like alcohol."

Professor Nutt and his team analysed the evidence of harm caused by
20 drugs including heroin, cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, LSD and tobacco.

They asked a group of 29 consultant psychiatrists who specialise in
addiction to rate the drugs in nine categories. Three of these
related to physical harm, three to the likelihood of addiction and
three to social harms such as healthcare costs. The team also
extended the analysis to another group of 16 experts spanning several
fields including chemistry, pharmacology, psychiatry, forensics,
police and legal services.

The final rankings placed heroin and cocaine as the most dangerous of
the 20 drugs. Alcohol was fifth, the class C drug ketamine sixth and
tobacco was in ninth place, just behind amphetamine or "speed".

Cannabis was 11th, while LSD and ecstasy were 14th and 18th
respectively. The rankings do take into account new evidence that
specially cultivated "skunk" varieties of cannabis available now are
two to three times stronger than traditional cannabis resin.

Evan Harris MP, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesman, said the
paper undermines the government's claim that drug policy is
evidence-based. "This comes from the top echelons of the government's
own advisory committee on the misuse of drugs. It blows a hole in the
government's current classification system for drugs." He said the
ACMD should make recommendations to ministers on how to change drug
policy based on the findings.

But the shadow home secretary, David Davis, rejected any changes that
would confuse the public. "Drugs wreck lives, destroy communities and
fuel other sorts of crime - especially gun and knife crime. Thanks to
the government's chaotic and confused approach to drugs policy, young
people increasingly think it is OK to take drugs," he said, adding
that he was against downgrading of ecstasy. "It is vital nothing else
leads young people to believe drugs are OK."

The position of ecstasy near the bottom of the list was defended by
Prof Nutt, who said that apart from some tragic isolated cases
ecstasy is relatively safe. Despite about a third of young people
having tried the drug and around half a million users every weekend,
it causes fewer than 10 deaths a year. One person a day is killed by
acute alcohol poisoning and thousands more from chronic use.

Prof Nutt said young people already know ecstasy is relatively safe,
so having it in class A makes a mockery of the entire classification
system for them. "The whole harm-reduction message disappears because
people say, 'They are lying.' Let's treat people as adults, tell them
the truth and hopefully work with them to minimise use."

Another advantage of the new system, according to Professor
Blakemore, is that it would be easy to tweak the rankings based on
new evidence.

The public furore over the downgrading of cannabis from B to C, he
said, showed how hard it is to change drug classifications once they
are fixed. "[Our system] would be easy to use on a rolling basis, to
reassess the harms of drugs as evidence developed," he said.