For decades, cannabis has been treated as a public menace while alcohol and tobacco were folded into daily life, policy frameworks and corporate profit models. A newly published scientific analysis out of Canada once again flips that logic on its head.
A peer-reviewed study published January 27 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology finds that alcohol and tobacco cause far greater overall harm to both individuals and society than cannabis. The research evaluates not just health risks, but the broader social damage associated with drug use, including injury, economic cost and harm to others.
The paper, titled Drug harms in Canada: A multi-criteria decision analysis, was authored by an international group of researchers and can be accessed here.
The findings are striking but consistent with prior global research. When all factors are weighed together, alcohol ranks as the most harmful drug overall, followed by tobacco. Cannabis sits far lower on the scale.
How the study measured harm
The researchers used a method known as multi-criteria decision analysis, a framework previously applied in the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand.
A panel of 20 experts from six Canadian provinces evaluated 16 psychoactive substances, including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, opioids and benzodiazepines. Each substance was scored across 16 categories of harm.
Ten categories measured harm to the user, including mortality risk, physical health damage, mental health impact and dependence. Six additional categories measured harm to others, including motor vehicle injuries, violence, environmental damage and economic cost.
After scoring each substance and weighting the relative importance of each category, alcohol emerged as the most damaging overall, with a cumulative harm score of 79. Tobacco followed at 45. Cannabis scored 15.
In other words, cannabis ranked far below alcohol and tobacco in terms of total population-level harm.
This isn’t new. That’s the point.
The Canadian findings …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
