Alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous than illegal drugs such as cannabis,LSD and ecstasy,the British governments top drugs adviser said today. Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London called for a new system of classifying drugs to enable the public to better understand the relative harm of legal and illegal substances. Alcohol would rank as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin,cocaine,barbiturates and methadone,he said in a briefing paper for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College London. Tobacco would come ninth on the list and cannabis,LSD and ecstasy while harmful,are ranked lower at 11,14 and 18 respectively. The ranking is based on physical harm,dependence and social harm. No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is one of scale and degree, said Nutt,the chairman of the governments Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He added: We have to accept young people like to experiment - with drugs and other potentially harmful activities - and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives.
