More stats: Alcohol: o 140 million Americans use alcohol o 18 million of these abuse alcohol or are alcoholics. o 100,000 deaths are due to alcohol, and an additional 100,000 deaths are alcohol related. Cocaine: o 12.2 million Americans used cocaine at least once in 1985. o 250,000 used it weekly. o In 1986, there were almost 1000 cocaine-induced deaths. Now let's recalculate. Deaths per user: Alcohol = 100,000/140,000,000 = .07 % or 70 per 100,000 Cocaine = 1,000/ 12,200,000 = .008 % or 8 per 100,000 Deaths per abuser: Alcohol = 100,000/18,000,000 = .56 % or 56 per 10,000 Cocaine = 1,000/ 250,000 = .40 % or 40 per 10,000 So even considering abusers, with advantage to alcohol (probably should be over 1%), cocaine is still healthier. By the way, you reported earlier the number 6000 for illegal drug deaths. But: o National Council on Alcoholism estimated that in 1985 all illegal drugs combined killed 3562 Americans [Most of these numbers are gleaned from an essay by Ethan Nadelmann called The Case for Legalization. It is found in: The Drug Legalization Debate. (ed. Inciardi, James A.), Sage publications, 1991. ISBN 0-8039-3677-{X or 8pbk}. It is a good book and should be referenced in our FAQ file.] ============================================================================= From: glo@globox.Eng.Sun.COM The exact numbers vary, depending on the source and their methodology. I have presented several sets of numbers here. In general you will see that the vast amount of money/energy/etc. applied to "illicit" drugs is quite misplaced if one is counting deaths or death rate per user. You may have access in your library to things like the Center for Disease Control Mortality and Morbidity reports and yearly summaries. The last one I looked at listed 800 something deaths a year for aspirin (and more for acetominephin (sp?) and ibuprofen) - verses 0 for cannabis (hemp/pot/marijuana/...). ============ (on the back cover of The Emperor Wears No Clothes) "How Dangerous is Marijuana in Comparison to Other Substances?" Number of American Deaths per year that result directly or primarily from the following (selected) causes nationwide, according to World Almanacs, Life Insurance Actuarial (death) Rates, and the last 18 years of the U.S. Surgeon General's Reports. Tobacco....................................340,000 to 395,000 Alcohol (not includeing 50% of all highway deaths and 65% of all murders).....125,000+ Aspirin (including deliberate overdose).... 180 to 1,000+ Caffeine (from stress, ulcers and triggering irregular heartbeats, etc.)........ 1,000 to 10,000 'Legal' drug overdose (deliberate or accidental) from legal, prescribed or patent medicines and/or mixing with alcohol e.g. Valium/alcohol... 14,000 to 27,000 Illicit drug overdose (deliberate or accidental) from all illegal drugs................................ 3,800 to 5,200 marijuana (including overdose)........................... 0 (zero) ------------ The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer available from: H.E.M.P. Publishing 5632 Van Nuys Blvd suite 210 Van Nuys CA 91401 (213) 392-1806 ============ from Thinking About Drug Legalization by James Ostrowski Cato Institute Paper # 121, May 25, 1989 $2.00 to order or for information, write Policy Analysis Cato Institute 224 Second St. SE Washington DC 20003 pg 47 reprinted without permission (I didn't find "Copyright..." or circled-C, but they did say to contact them... I guess if you want to reprint the whole thing - what the hey - at $2.00 for 64 pages why reprint, just buy the whole thing from them! [ my (glo's) the posters notes in [] - glo] [ glo note: *xxx* used in place of underlines - glo] =============== pg 47 Table 4 presents the estimated per capita death rates for each drug. (While a number of people have died as a result of marijuana *enforcement*, there are apparently no confirmed deaths traceable to marijuana *use*.) The figures for cocaine and heroin have been adjusted downward, in accordance with the previous analysis, to include only those deaths due to drug use per se. The unadjusted death rate for these drugs is in parentheses. [glo note: the "previous analysis" details how overdose due to] [ variable strength and toxic reactions and infections due to] [ the uncontrolled black market in drugs causes most of the] [ deaths due to "heroin and cocaine" use - glo] Estimated Per Capita Death Rates by Drugs ---------------------------------------------------------- Drug Users Deaths per Year Deaths per 100,000 ---------------------------------------------------------- Tobacco 60 million 390,000 (a) 650 alcohol 100 million 150,000 (b) 150 Heroin 500,000 400 (c) 80 (400) Cocaine 5 million 200 (c) 4 (20) ---------------------------------------------------------- [ glo note: the astute reader will notice that even contaminated] [ street heroin is safer than cigarettes, and cocaine is much safer] [ than even alcohol. (the crack form is apparently more addicting] [ than alcohol - but not nicotine, powder is less addicting than alcohol -] [ see "Hooked Not Hooked") Pot is, well..., "absolutely safe" in] [ terms of causing death itself. And how many traffic deaths per] [ year: 20,000+ ? - glo] (a) "Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking: 25 Years of Progress" Surgeon General's Report (1989). (b) Estimates vary greatly, depending upon whether all health consequences, or only those traditionally associated with alcoholism, are considered. The Fifth Special Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcoholism and Health from the Secretary of Health and Human Services contains two references indicating a death toll of 200,000: The report states, first, that alcohol "plays a role in 10% of all deaths in the United States," which comes to about 200,000 deaths each year. P. vi. It further states that present estimates of the death toll from alcohol abuse are as high as 93.2 per 100,000. Ibid., p. x. This ratio translates into a total of about 210,000. (c) These figures were determined as follows: Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) heroin and cocaine fatalities for 1984, 1985, and 1986 were averaged. The number of suicides was subtracted. The figures were discounted to account for deaths in which both heroin and cocaine played a role. Since DAWN covers about one-third of the nation's population but almost all major urban areas where drug use florishes, totals were doubled to arrive at yearly estimates of 2,000 for heroin deaths and 1,000 for cocaine deaths. Finally, these figures were dis- counted by 80 percent in accordance with the analysis presented in the text ========== end of table 4, pg 47====================== and if you want to get some info on addiction, find this magazine article: (and its references) Hooked Not Hooked by Deborah Franklin In Health (ISSN 1047-0549) November/December 1990 Volume 4 Number 6 (no address for back issues listed, main address:) In Health c/o Hippocrates Partners 475 Gate 5 Road suite 225 Sausalito CA 94965 ============================================================================= From: hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Date: 7 Sep 91 19:25:39 GMT Newsgroups: alt.drugs Subject: For your perusal -- U.S. Surgeon General's Actuarial info The following is a list of deaths by substance for 1990. Tobacco . . . . . . . . . . . . 360,000 [legal] Alcohol . . . . . . . . . . . . 130,000 [legal] Prescribed drugs . . . . . . . 18,675 [legal] Caffeine . . . . . . . . . . . 5,800 [legal] Cocaine . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,390 [illegal] Heroin . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,147 [illegal] Aspirin . . . . . . . . . . . . 986 [legal] Marijuana . . . . . . . . . . . 0 [illegal] ============================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 14:35:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Leora Lawton Subject: drug survey results To: Multiple recipients of list DRUGABUS Message-id: <01GZPZ3KAOYQ8WW43H@YMIR.CLAREMONT.EDU> WASHINGTON (AP) _ Illegal drug use is off sharply among American teen-agers and adults with one glaring exception: those 35 and older. Those were the key findings from an annual survey on drug abuse released Wednesday by federal health officials. Some 11.4 million Americans age 12 or older were classified as current users of illegal drugs in 1992, down 11 percent from almost 13 million drug users a year earlier. That means they had used drugs in the month before the survey. The number has been declining steadily since 1979, when the same survey indicated that 24 million Americans had used illicit drugs. Adults 35 and older _ including the baby boomers who grew up in the permissive 1960s _ are bucking the trend. Use of drugs in that age group is the same now as it was back in 1979. The older adults now comprise 23 percent of illegal drug users, compared to just 10 percent in 1979. The number of current cocaine users plummeted 31 percent from 1.9 million in 1991 to 1.3 million in 1992. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which conducted the survey, said that was down from a peak of 5.8 million in 1985. Occasional cocaine use _ less than once a month _ was down by 900,000, to 3.4 million. But the number of frequent users _ at least weekly _ stood unchanged at 640,000. Marijuana remains the illegal drug of choice, used by 78 percent of those who tried illegal drugs in 1992. An estimated 98 million Americans drank alcohol in the month before the survey; 10 million were defined as heavy drinkers _ five or more drinks on five or more days in the past 30 days. The survey also indicated that 54 million Americans, or 26 percent of the population, were cigarette smokers. Some 7.5 million used smokeless tobacco. Other statistics: _Six percent of 12-to-17-year-olds were current users of illegal drugs; 13 percent of 18-to-25-year-olds and 10 percent of 26-to-34-year-olds used drugs. _Most illegal drug users were white (8.7 million or 76 percent); 14 percent were black (1.6 million); 8 percent were Hispanic (900,000). _More men than women used illicit drugs: 7.1 percent versus 4.1 percent. _Almost 21 percent of unemployed 18-to-34-year-olds were illegal drug users, nearly double the rate for those with jobs. The survey was based on in-person interviews of 28,832 people who were promised confidentiality. ============================================================================= From: Charlie Ksir Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 10:31:10 -0600 Subject: Re: choices >Richard Hammersley writes: > >>Surely traffic accidents are the most common fatal result of drug abuse >>and I hope this list doesn't separate off alcohol from drugs. > Dan Drumm replies: > >I thought it was lung cancer, then traffic accidents. >I don't know what comes next, but I sure would be interested if >anyone can reference any research on this. > In this context, I expect it's really heart disease first. I assume Danny was talking about tobacco. A table published in 1991 by the US Centers for Disease Control, based on 1988 data, estimates something called "Smoking-Attributable Mortality" as follows: All heart diseases : 150, 320 Cancer of lung, trachea, & bronchus: 111,985 Other non-cancerous respiratory diseases, including bronchitis, emphysema, chronic airways obstruction, pneumonia, & influenza add up to 81,339. And let's not forget the circulatory problems other than coronary heart disease: add up smoking-attributable deaths from hypertension, strokes, atheroschlerosis, aortic aneurysm, and "other arterial disease", and you get 50,682. I just grabbed the 1987 Alcohol & Health report to the U.S. Congress off my shelf ('m sure there's a newer one around here somewhere, but can't lay my hands on it). Estimated mortality data in it were based on 1980 numbers, and had motor vehicle traffic accidents attributable to alcohol at 25, 965. That estimate would be smaller today, because total traffic accidents are down from over 50,000 in 1980 to under 40,000, and the proportion of fatally-injured drivers with a BAL > 0.10 declined from over 50% in 1980 to about 40% (last stuff taken from Ray & Ksir, 1993). Let's say about 20,000. If the question was, what's the "most common fatal result of drug (ab)use", including alcohol and tobacco, then heart disease is the winner, especially when you consider that heavy alcohol use also contributes to heart disease. Various cancers would be next, since smoking is associated with other kinds of cancer besides lungs (mouth, esophagus, pancreas, etc), and alcohol is too (mouth, stomach). The total would approach the heart disease total. Next would be other respiratory diseases, to which alcohol contributes a few thousand extra pneumonia and influenza deaths, and then circulatory problems (alcohol adds a few here, too). All of these are way above the number of alcohol-attributed traffic accidents. There are other differences, of course. The average age of an alcohol-related traffic fatality is much younger than the avergae age of those dying from these "diseases of chronic exposure", and may be seen therefore as more tragic in that same way that a drug overdose death or suicide of a young person is seen. On the other hand, these younger victims have a greater chance of dying quickly, whereas most of the deaths attributable to chronic smoking or drinking result in long, painful, and expensive illnesses before death. Hope this morbid thread doesn't have too long a life, but I thought I could contribute some official US Government data. .... Charlie Ksir The opinions herein are my own, .... University of Wyoming so leave my employer alone.