see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

[neurosis]

the fact that so many of them, live so long, tends to make me think that not many do.

You're going to have to explain Keith Richards! 

Studies have ranked alcohol as being more harmful than cocaine, or in some cases, even heroin.

It's probably not difficult to figure out why we don't have stricter dui laws?     

[Jeff]

Studies have ranked alcohol as being more harmful than cocaine, or in some cases, even heroin.

lol in what capacity is alcohol more harmful than heroin?
If going by number of people then maybe. But on a scale of being dangerous, hell naw.

[neurosis]

lol in what capacity is alcohol more harmful than heroin?
If going by number of people then maybe. But on a scale of being dangerous, hell naw.

I'm not a doctor or a scientist. I can just tell you what I've read.

https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/why-alcohol-is-the-deadliest-drug/#:~:text=The%20World%20Health%20Organization%20estimates,while%20crack%20received%20a%2054.

"The World Health Organization estimates risks linked to alcohol cause 2.5 million deaths worldwide each year from heart and liver disease, road accidents, suicides, and cancer. On the scale given by the scientists, alcohol received a score of 72 out of 100. Heroin received a 55, while crack received a 54."

[beej]

how about we go by deaths per user as opposed to total deaths.

[neurosis]

Nobody is going to challenge the cocaine addiction compared to alcohol? 

[Smit]

Nobody is going to challenge the cocaine addiction compared to alcohol? 

Most of the people I knew that did cocaine just quit. Same as the pot smokers. The heavy drinkers had a much more difficult time quitting.

[YoDoug]

Nobody is going to challenge the cocaine addiction compared to alcohol? 

[gcode]

alcohol vrs heroin vrs cocaine

The lifestyle heroin and coke users lead in support of their habits are a main cause of their deaths,
I'll bet there are lots of rich junkies and coke heads around and people have no idea they are junkies and coke heads

[neurosis]

I'll bet there are lots of rich junkies and coke heads around and people have no idea they are junkies and coke heads

Those who are wealthy enough to get stuff that isn't cut 10 times with fentanyl and other crap.

[mowens]

Here's a table summarising quantitative harm-scores for various substances from major studies comparing drugs (including Ethanol/alcohol) in terms of harm to user + others. These give a rough numeric comparison of "misery/dysfunction" as captured by expert assessments.

Substance   Score   Study & Notes
Alcohol   ~72   From the UK study by David J. Nutt et al.: overall harm score 72 (out of 100) for alcohol.
PubMed
+2
ResearchGate
+2

Heroin   ~55   Same UK study: heroin scored ~55.
PubMed
+1

Crack Cocaine   ~54   Same UK study: crack ~54.
PubMed
+1

Other drugs (e.g., cocaine, cannabis)   Much lower (e.g., ~20–30)   UK summary says e.g. cocaine ~27, cannabis ~20.
Imperial College London
+1

European survey (EU experts)   Alcohol ~72, Heroin ~55, Crack ~50   EU-wide MCDA.
PubMed
Key observations

The top score (alcohol) is ~72 in the UK study, meaning alcohol was judged most harmful overall.
PubMed
+2
ResearchGate
+2

The ranking implies that although some illegal drugs may appear individually more acutely harmful (e.g., overdose risk), when you account for user + others + prevalence (i.e., total societal harm) alcohol comes out on top in these assessments.

These scores allow rough quantitative comparison: e.g., if alcohol is 72 and cannabis ~20, one might say that, on that metric, alcohol is ~3.6 times as harmful as cannabis in that model.

Important caveats (so you interpret the numbers properly)

These are expert assessments using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) — they are not purely epidemiological "cases of misery" counts. For example, the UK study used 16 harm-criteria (9 to the individual + 7 to others) and scored drugs out of 100.
ResearchGate
+1

The scores depend heavily on prevalence of use, patterns of use, regulation, social context: a widely used substance may cause more total harm even if per-user harm is lower.

"Harm" in these models is a broad composite: physical, psychological, social, economic, harm to others, etc. It is not a direct "misery score" (but serves as proxy).

These numbers are from particular countries/contexts (UK, EU). Patterns may differ in the US/other places.

"Misery/dysfunction" is partly subjective and not fully captured by such models.

How you could use this

Use the scores as relative weights in comparing substances (e.g., if you want to model "expected societal dysfunction" by substance use).

Use as one input in a broader model (along with prevalence, cost, mortality, morbidity).

Be careful not to treat the numbers as exact cardinal values—more as ordinal/relative indicators.

[beej]

using the same metrics you could come to the conclusion that cars are more dangerous than motorcycles, because cars are more prevalent. or that higher speeds are less dangerous than lower speeds because it's rare for someone to die while driving 225 mph on a race track compared to the number of people who die while traveling 65mph on a highway

[Jeff]

Nobody is going to challenge the cocaine addiction compared to alcohol? 

I'm waiting to see what the WHO says about it.

/s

[mowens]

Which causes the most harm to society as a whole?

[Rstewart]

So what you're telling me is that I should switch to Coke?   

[Jeff]

So what you're telling me is that I should switch to Coke?   

Much better than Pepsi, by a mile.