Psilocybin ranked least harmful of twenty drugs, alcohol most
What they did
An expert panel scored twenty drugs against sixteen criteria covering nine harms to the user and seven harms to other people, then weighted and combined the scores into an overall harm rating.
What they found
Alcohol ranked most harmful overall with a score of 72, ahead of heroin at 55 and crack cocaine at 54. Psilocybin mushrooms received the lowest overall harm score of the twenty substances assessed.
Worth knowing
Expert judgement rather than measured outcomes, from a UK panel in 2010. Lowest harm of twenty does not mean no harm, and the ranking says nothing about any individual's risk.
Nutt et al. Drug harms in the UK, a multicriteria decision analysis. The Lancet, 2010.
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adverse eventsNo serious harms in healthy people, some in psychiatric patientsdose responseEffects rose with dose, and most found the experience pleasantabuse potentialLow abuse potential, and a case for lighter schedulingThe headline finding worth carrying around is that risk concentrates in people with existing psychiatric conditions and in unsupervised settings. If either applies to you, talk to a doctor before you start anything.
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