I find it disturbing that social issues come into play here. Alcohol and tobacco are the only legal drugs. Therefore, their social effects will definitely be greater than the illegal drugs, especially those considered <i>heavy</i>, such as heroin, or crack cocaine.

Cthulhu - I hate to disagree. Caffeine is a legal drug as well. Do you know how many coffee, pop, and tea addicts there are?

The question remains if a drug like herion or crack were legal would their negative impact increase or not. I don't think it would for pot but I'm not so sure about the others. As for judging if you're to wasted to drive, with drugs like meth and crack you become less able to judge correctly. As for opiates you might be surprised how many people are driving and etc while under the influance.

I would respond in great detail to this question but I'm trying to be safer and I'm all cracked out. I have 2 beers in the fridge and now I think their plotting to turn me in to the cops. Gotta go hide and maybe steal some stuff. Be back soon if things are clear.

@Draugnar: Coffee and Tea addiction do not cause you to steal for a hit, which is not true for heroin and crack cocaine, and even for tobacco and alcohol. The level of addiction has to be weighed in.

However, you are right, I do not know how many tea and coffee addicts are out there.

this coming from "cthulhu"

you really gonna trust the dread lord?

www.alanbaxteronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/cthulhu.jpg

Ebay +2 (you made me laugh)

@ Cthulu "Coffee and Tea addiction do not cause you to steal for a hit" I saw 2 homeless fighting a cup coffee the other day, and someone stole my coupon for a free cup of coffee.

I feel discriminated against!

@warsprite: Wanna talk about food addiction? How about hydro dioxide addiction?

Never post when tired!

Hydro dioxide was supposed to be dihidrate monoxide (or is it dihydrogen monoxide?).

The addictive poison of which you speak is dihydrogen monoxide. It's a real scary drug found in virtually every home. In fact, it's in our water supply and every person onearth has become so addicted to it that they can't live without it. If they try to go off it, they get delusional. And some people arte so addicted, they feel the need to buy it in purified bottle form.

lulz, "it's in our water supply"

Not in Boston

Hydrogen oxide
Dihydrogen monoxide
Hydrogen monoxide
Hydroxylic acid
Hydrogen hydroxide
R-718
Oxygen dihydride
Oxygen hydride
Oxane

It's worth bearing in mind the guy who made this chart is trying to replace alcohol with a drug he created, and he was sacked as health minister, so there's likely to be some bias there (not that alcohol isn't a very dangerous drug of course, and maybe his approach is the right one, but biases and motives should be disclosed)

@ cthulhu: You count the coffee addicts in America (N and S) and I'll count the number of tea addicts in China and we can compare results. (PS I'm up to 1 billion already.)

Where can I score this 'dihydrogen monoxide'. Sounds kinda cool.

Alcohol usually comes near the top of these things. Cigarettes not q

Ahhh, tab then space...

Alcohol usually comes near the top of these things. Cigarettes not quite so high, purely because it doesn't kill you straight away. Obviously, nasty when you do go, but generally you get quite a few years to do it to yourself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

Smoking has only really become a problem because people are being foolish enough to live longer. In those happy nations of Africa with life expectancies of 40-50 years or so you could easily smoke 60 a day safe in the knowledge that the chances of cancer killing you are virtually nil... lucky bastards. My poor Gran smoked 40 a day and only lived to 86, when she was killed off by a stress related illness. Alas, she'd given up smoking a few years before, otherwise she might still be alive.

As far as alcohol goes this report is just stating what should be obvious. Alcohol is only really a problem to those poor sods who get addicted to it, and then it ruins there lives and the lives of those around them. The trouble is with booze the number of said poor sods is surprisingly high. Ecstasy, on the other hand, is almost entirely harmless to anyone who isn't a complete idiot who takes them when totally rat-arsed.

@kestasjk: +1

@Timur: I lost count...

@Octavious: Sadly, this isn't obvious. People get addicted to alcohol via abuse, and sometimes because they do not know better. I wouldn't know about ecstasy.

http://www.armory.com/~crisper/DHMO/

http://www.dhmo.org/