What’s the most dangerous drug in the world?
If you go off how much damage it can do to a person’s life you might think something like heroin or crystal meth.
If you look at the Government’s drug classification system you’d imagine crack cocaine could be up there with its frightening addictiveness.
But while these Class A drugs can wreak terrible, terrible harm on people and societies, they still do not make it to the top spot of list of the world’s most dangerous drugs, according to science.
The one substance considered to be more harmful that any other on the planet is actually alcohol.
Yes, alcohol. It’s fun, it’s legal and they dish it out to us by the bucket load in pubs, clubs and shops across the country.
How is booze so dangerous and how did scientists come to the conclusion that it was worse than crack, heroin and crystal meth?
IFL Science cite two studies – one by the British Government’s former chief drugs advisor David Nutt and another by European scientists – which looked at a range of factors.
It considered everything from the likelihood of dying, physical injury, addiction and brain function impairment to criminal activity and right up to the economic cost to the country, as well as the international damage in terms of political and societal destabilization.
But alcohol still comes out as the worst of the worst both in Britain and in Europe.
Around 3.3 million deaths every year are caused by the harmful use of alcohol, according to the World Health Organisation.
That’s 5.9% of all deaths annually – which works out at a shocking one person every 10 seconds.
