Why Alcohol Is The Deadliest Drug
Opioids are taking the news headlines by storm, and rightfully so, as we are living amongst a deadly opioid overdose epidemic here in the US People are dying from prescription pills every day, and we cannot do enough to reduce the number of these deaths. However, what we don’t hear enough about is alcohol and how deadly it is. Alcohol is the most socially acceptable drug on the market and the most easily accessible. Even with this knowledge, the general public still has a tendency to believe alcohol is ok, not dangerous, and an acceptable form of relaxation. Science tells us something different. Alcohol is the deadliest drug of all. Let’s look at why this is true.
Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of death in the US The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has reported that alcohol causes 88,000 deaths each year. Alcohol has shortened the lifespan of those 88,000 human beings by 30 years. All other drugs combined only cause 30,000 deaths a year. Alcohol is not only harmful to the individual, but it’s also harmful to society as a whole. Its negative effects are wide-ranging and can result in injuries, car accidents, violence, and sexual assault. Even with knowing this, alcohol is still more common than other drugs, and alcohol distributors and bartenders are not looked at like drug dealers who sell Heroin and Cocaine. Alcohol is different than other illicit substances that we know can cause overdose deaths because alcohol can also kill people slowly by deteriorating the body.
According to a study released in 2010 by a group of British scientists, alcohol was rated the most harmful drug overall and almost three times as harmful as Cocaine or Tobacco. In comparison, ecstasy was only one eighth as harmful as alcohol. This ranking encouraged the scientists to say that aggressively targeting the harms of alcohol is a necessary public health strategy. They also mentioned that the current drug classifications had little to do with the relation to the evidence of harm. Just because Cocaine and heroin are illegal doesn’t make them more dangerous. The World Health Organization estimates risks linked to alcohol cause 2.5 million deaths worldwide each year from heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides, and cancer. On the scale given by the scientists, alcohol received a score of 72 out of 100. Heroin received a 55, while crack received a 54.
