A study carried out by Bristol University [via] and published in The Lancet ranks both alcohol and tobacco as being more harmful than many illegal drugs such as cannabis or ecstasy.
Professor David Nutt, lead author on the paper, said:
Drug misuse and abuse are major health problems. Our methodology offers a systematic framework and process that could be used by national and international regulatory bodies to assess the harm of current and future drugs of abuse.
There is however no political will to actually change policy in the light of this and other studies that have shown that our current system is flawed.
