Meathead
March 23rd, 2007, 9:07:35 AM
for many years a major pet peeve of mine has been the term ‘drugs and alcohol’. the reasons why i find this phrase so troubling are:
1. alcohol is a drug. saying ‘drugs and alcohol’ is like saying ‘food and hamburgers’
2. by separating the two we are saying they are different, essentially that ‘drugs’ are unacceptable/bad and alcohol is acceptable/good. this is perpetuating a delusion
3. by perpetuating this delusion we are actively introducing all kinds of trauma and dysfunction into our lives. some examples:
a. we lose credibility with teenagers and other abusers. when a young person is lectured on the danger of ‘drugs’ and yet sees adults imbibing freely in alcohol they rightfully see this as hypocritical giving them a convenient excuse to reject the entire argument out of hand
b. by seeing them as different we introduce and perpetuate the denial about the tremendous dangers of alcohol and the damage its abuse inflicts on our society, while at the same time potentially inflating the danger of other mind altering substances
c. by not recognizing alcohol as a drug we pretend that humans dont have a drive and potentially acceptable need for mind altering substances, thus completely avoiding the responsible use argument and pushing all non-alcohol users into criminal and/or immoral territory when many of them absolutely should not be
thus we should stop using the term ‘drugs and alcohol’ and instead always use the term ‘drugs including alcohol’. this solves a great deal of the problems i have outlined above and introduces more responsibility into the entire discussion
therefore i was pleased to see this latest development on the classification of drugs by harmfulness - physical harm, dependency and effect
Alcohol 'as dangerous as heroin' (http://www.itv.com/news/britain_b3cbe0d877b5bda9d51a382a73979cf2.html)
Alcohol is as dangerous as heroin, medical experts proposing a controversial new drug classification system have said.
The table, published in The Lancet, was drawn up by a team of highly-respected scientists led by University of Bristol's Professor David Nutt and chief executive of the Medical Research Council, Professor Colin Blakemore.
Using three main factors to determine harmfulness - physical harm, dependency and effect - independent experts rated 20 drugs in each category as either "no risk" (0), "some risk" (1), "moderate risk" ( 2) and "extreme risk" (3).
Combining the scores, heroin was unsurprisingly top of the table with an overall "harm score" of 2.7, followed by cocaine which scored 2.3. Alcohol was put at just under 2 and tobacco at 1.7.
Speaking at a news briefing in London, Prof Blakemore said: "Alcohol and tobacco are way up there in the league table, with alcohol being not very far behind demonised terrors of the street like heroin."
Class A drug Ecstasy is placed near the bottom of the table scoring just over 1.1, despite it potentially leading to a seven-year prison sentence for possession.
And LSD, another class A drug, is also considered relatively safe despite its powerful hallucinogenic properties while Cannabis, which was recently downgraded to class C, also occupies a middle position on the table at just over 1.1.
Prof Blakemore added: "We hope that policy makers will take note of the fact that the resulting ranking of drugs differs substantially from their classification in the Misuse of Drugs Act and that alcohol and tobacco are judged more harmful than many illegal substances."
1. alcohol is a drug. saying ‘drugs and alcohol’ is like saying ‘food and hamburgers’
2. by separating the two we are saying they are different, essentially that ‘drugs’ are unacceptable/bad and alcohol is acceptable/good. this is perpetuating a delusion
3. by perpetuating this delusion we are actively introducing all kinds of trauma and dysfunction into our lives. some examples:
a. we lose credibility with teenagers and other abusers. when a young person is lectured on the danger of ‘drugs’ and yet sees adults imbibing freely in alcohol they rightfully see this as hypocritical giving them a convenient excuse to reject the entire argument out of hand
b. by seeing them as different we introduce and perpetuate the denial about the tremendous dangers of alcohol and the damage its abuse inflicts on our society, while at the same time potentially inflating the danger of other mind altering substances
c. by not recognizing alcohol as a drug we pretend that humans dont have a drive and potentially acceptable need for mind altering substances, thus completely avoiding the responsible use argument and pushing all non-alcohol users into criminal and/or immoral territory when many of them absolutely should not be
thus we should stop using the term ‘drugs and alcohol’ and instead always use the term ‘drugs including alcohol’. this solves a great deal of the problems i have outlined above and introduces more responsibility into the entire discussion
therefore i was pleased to see this latest development on the classification of drugs by harmfulness - physical harm, dependency and effect
Alcohol 'as dangerous as heroin' (http://www.itv.com/news/britain_b3cbe0d877b5bda9d51a382a73979cf2.html)
Alcohol is as dangerous as heroin, medical experts proposing a controversial new drug classification system have said.
The table, published in The Lancet, was drawn up by a team of highly-respected scientists led by University of Bristol's Professor David Nutt and chief executive of the Medical Research Council, Professor Colin Blakemore.
Using three main factors to determine harmfulness - physical harm, dependency and effect - independent experts rated 20 drugs in each category as either "no risk" (0), "some risk" (1), "moderate risk" ( 2) and "extreme risk" (3).
Combining the scores, heroin was unsurprisingly top of the table with an overall "harm score" of 2.7, followed by cocaine which scored 2.3. Alcohol was put at just under 2 and tobacco at 1.7.
Speaking at a news briefing in London, Prof Blakemore said: "Alcohol and tobacco are way up there in the league table, with alcohol being not very far behind demonised terrors of the street like heroin."
Class A drug Ecstasy is placed near the bottom of the table scoring just over 1.1, despite it potentially leading to a seven-year prison sentence for possession.
And LSD, another class A drug, is also considered relatively safe despite its powerful hallucinogenic properties while Cannabis, which was recently downgraded to class C, also occupies a middle position on the table at just over 1.1.
Prof Blakemore added: "We hope that policy makers will take note of the fact that the resulting ranking of drugs differs substantially from their classification in the Misuse of Drugs Act and that alcohol and tobacco are judged more harmful than many illegal substances."