Marijuana is roughly 114 times less deadly than alcohol,
according to recent findings published in the journal Scientific Reports. Of the seven drugs included in the study, alcohol was the deadliest at an individual level,
followed by heroin, cocaine, tobacco, ecstasy,
methamphetamines, and marijuana. Previous studies
consistently ranked marijuana as the safest recreational
drug, but it was not known that the discrepancy was this
large.

The researchers determined the mortality risk by
comparing a lethal dose of each substance with the
amount typically used. Not only was marijuana the
lowest of the drugs tested, but there was such a gap
between its lethal and typical doses that they classified
it as the only "low mortality risk" drug tested. All others were classified as "medium" or "high."

MARIJUANA COMES WITH A LOW MORTALITY RISK
COMPARED TO DRUGS LIKE ECSTASY OR TOBACCO

These findings contradict the efforts of law enforcement
agencies around the country which, despite pockets of
decriminalization (and in some cases, legalization),
typically focus heavily on marijuana-related arrests. The
authors suggest that, based on the results, these
agencies would benefit from shifting priorities away from illicit drugs and placing them instead on keeping
things like alcohol and tobacco in check. In fact, the
researchers believe marijuana to be so low-risk that they
suggest a broad, regulated legalization of it in the
paper.

Attempts to compare the danger of particular drugs
have been few and far between. It wasn't until the last
decade that studies were done to classify the risk of
drug abuse in a qualitative and quantitative manner,
according to the authors. (They cite attempts at indexing the toxicity or ranking the harm of certain drugs as examples.) Before that, they claim, the risk
assessment of drug abuse was instead based heavily on
anecdotal evidence, which often meant that policy
decisions were largely based on educated guesses.

The researchers clarified that the study does not suggest
that moderate alcohol consumption poses a higher risk
than regular heroin use. Environmental conditions, like
dirty needles or unregulated supplies, contribute to the
overall harm caused by using a drug like heroin. Instead,
this study was specifically done to measure the deadliness of the substances themselves.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/23/8093203/marijuana-is-much-safer-than-alcohol-or-tobacco-according-to-a-new

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/

Abeg pass me rizla