From: harelb@magrathea.uchicago.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.headlines,alt.activism,alt.conspiracy,alt.drugs,
            alt.censorship,soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Tobacco facts, part (2) --  (was Re: U.S. Corporate Drug-Lords)
Date: 28 Oct 90 04:16:49 GMT

"To rank today's commonly used drugs by their addictiveness, we asked
experts to consider two questions: How easy is it to get hooked on
these substances and how hard is it to stop using them? Although a
person's vulnerability to drug also depends on individual traits --
physiology, psychology, and social and economic pressures -- these
rankings reflect only the addictive potential inherent in the drug.
The numbers below are relative rankings, based on the experts' scores
for each substance:

Nicotine				100
Ice, Glass (Methamphetamine smoked)	 99
Crack					 98
Crystal Meth (Methamphetamine injected)	 93
Valium (Diazepam)			 85
Quaalude (Methaqualone)			 83
Seconal (Secobarbital)			 82
Alcohol					 81
Heroin					 80
Crank (Amphetamine taken nasally)	 78
Cocaine					 72
Caffeine				 68
PCP (Phencyclidine)			 57
Marijuana				 21
Ecstasy (MDMA)				 20
Psilocybin Mushrooms			 18
LSD					 18
Mescaline				 18

[Research by John Hastings]

[From: _In Health_, Nov/Dec 1990; eye-balling by Harel Barzilai;
relative rankings are definite, numbers given are (+/-)1%]
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"`There's some abuse potential with marijuana,' Koob [sic] says. `For
example, it's probably at least as dangerous for someone to drive
while high on marijuana as to drive while drunk. But on my list of
drugs likely to produce dependency -- people who are out of control of
their use and want to quit, but can't -- it's pretty far down the
line.'

"By the same token, LSD may be dangerous if it makes you think you can
fly and your dive out a window, but it's unlikely to produce
addiction. `It is just not a drug that people take in a compulsive
way,' Koob says. Some people scoffed when the Surgeon General four
year ago called nicotine the most addictive drug known. But survey
figures indicate that nine of every ten people who light up a
cigarette will one day have trouble quitting, compared with perhaps
two first-time cocaine users."

("Dr. George Koob is a leading neurobiologist at the Research
Institute of Scripps Clinic (San Diego)")

[From: _In Health_, Nov/Dec 1990]

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