Comment by CitizenKane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CitizenKane | Hacker News Reader

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Generally, the safety of a given substance can be determined through its therapeutic index. The therapeutic index for a substance is calculated by taking the amount of the substance that will induce toxicity in 50% of a population divided the dose that will induce the effect of the drug in 50% of the population. In short, the ratio of how much will be (acutely) toxic to how much will make you high.

Here are some therapeutic indexes for common drugs [0]:

Heroin - 6

Alcohol - 10

Cocaine - 15

MDMA - 16

LSD - ~1000

THC - > 1000

Alcohol has very dangerous acute effects and it's very possible to overdose on alcohol. Compare to THC where a toxic dose is on the level of 15g. Assuming that THC is approximately 5% of the content of the cannabis [1] this would mean smoking 300 grams of cannabis (with 100% absorption by the body). That would make for ~600 joints (with a joint having about half a gram of cannabis) to get to a level of toxicity.

So relatively speaking, Alcohol (at least in the short term) is quite dangerous.

[0] PDF - http://web.cgu.edu/faculty/gabler/toxicity%20Addiction%20off...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_%28drug%29#Potency

Those are great statistics for judging the likelihood of overdosing (although, I'm not sure it's the only factor to consider - the physically small amount of cocaine needed to OD probably mitigates its higher therapeutic index).

If you want to evaluate danger there are other factors that need to be considered -- i.e. people "safely" high on MDMA may dehydrate, and people "safely" high on LSD may jump off of a bridge.

people "safely" high on LSD may jump off of a bridge.

Sober people may jump off a bridge too. Should we outlaw sobriety? The "man on LSD thinks he can fly and jumps out of window" myth is largely that: a myth. If I recall, it was inspired by a real story of LSD experimentation on some kind of federal agent, who was given a good dose of LSD without his knowledge, thought he was going mad, and threw himself out of a window to make it end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson

I came here to post this and found a new possible source for the "jumping off the bridge" meme.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/10/24/b...

Long story short, a student took LSD on a class trip, which involved a visit to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. The student didn't jump off the bridge, but climbed a railing on an observation deck and fell.

I am completely against prohibition of any drug, however, I can speak from experience that LSD can genuinely drive you temporarily insane, even at relatively small doses.

More than once I have been convinced (even though I knew I had put a little piece of paper on my tongue) that what was happening to me was outside of the context of 'tripping.'

One time I would have committed suicide had I been convinced that it would have worked. I was completely under the impression that it would only be painful and not really do anything but sort of hit a 'reset' button into what was at the time essentially hell.

Outlaw bridges.

I'm categorizing distilled alcohol (i.e., liquor) differently than beer and wine, as I think the former is significantly more dangerous. I could be wrong, though - I wonder where it would end up on that scale if the different forms were rated distinctly.

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