
     These are excerpts from the file "drug.use.stats" which you can
get via FTP to ftp.hmc.edu in the pub/drugs/misc directory.

------------------------------------

Alcohol:
  o 140 million Americans use alcohol

  o 18 million of these abuse alcohol or are alcoholics.

  o 100,000 deaths are due to alcohol, and an additional
    100,000 deaths are alcohol related.
Cocaine:

  o 12.2 million Americans used cocaine at least once in 1985.

  o 250,000 used it weekly.

  o In 1986, there were almost 1000 cocaine-induced deaths.


Now let's recalculate.

Deaths per user:
  Alcohol = 100,000/140,000,000 = .07 %    or 70 per 100,000
  Cocaine =   1,000/ 12,200,000 = .008 %   or  8 per 100,000

Deaths per abuser:
  Alcohol = 100,000/18,000,000  = .56 %    or 56 per 1000
  Cocaine =   1,000/   250,000  = .40 %    or 40 per 1000


So even considering abusers, with advantage to alcohol (probably
should be over 1%), cocaine is still healthier.


By the way, you reported earlier the number 6000 for
  illegal drug deaths. But:

  o National Council on Alcoholism estimated that in 1985
    all illegal drugs combined killed 3562 Americans


[Most of these numbers are gleaned from an essay by Ethan Nadelmann
 called The Case for Legalization. It is found in:
  The Drug Legalization Debate. (ed. Inciardi, James A.),
  Sage publications, 1991.  ISBN  0-8039-3677-{X or 8pbk}.


(on the back cover of The Emperor Wears No Clothes)
"How Dangerous is Marijuana in Comparison to Other Substances?"
Number of American Deaths per year that result directly or
primarily from the following (selected) causes nationwide,
according to World Almanacs, Life Insurance Actuarial (death)
Rates, and the last 18 years of the U.S. Surgeon General's Reports.

Tobacco....................................340,000 to 395,000
Alcohol (not includeing 50% of all highway
  deaths and 65% of all murders).....125,000+
Aspirin (including deliberate overdose)....  180 to 1,000+
Caffeine (from stress, ulcers and triggering
  irregular heartbeats, etc.)........ 1,000 to 10,000
'Legal' drug overdose (deliberate or accidental)
  from legal, prescribed or patent medicines
  and/or mixing with alcohol e.g. Valium/alcohol... 14,000 to 27,000
Illicit drug overdose (deliberate or accidental) from
  all illegal drugs................................ 3,800 to 5,200
marijuana (including overdose)........................... 0 (zero)



============
from   Thinking About Drug Legalization
  by James Ostrowski
  Cato Institute Paper # 121, May 25, 1989  $2.00
  to order or for information, write
  Policy Analysis
  Cato Institute
  224 Second St. SE
  Washington DC 20003

pg 47 reprinted without permission (I didn't find "Copyright..." or circled-C,
but they did say to contact them... I guess if you want to reprint
the whole thing - what the hey - at $2.00 for 64 pages why reprint,
just buy the whole thing from them!
[ my (glo's) the posters notes in [] - glo]
[ glo note: *xxx* used in place of underlines - glo]

===============
pg 47
  Table 4 presents the estimated per capita death rates
for each drug.  (While a number of people have died as a result
of marijuana *enforcement*, there are apparently no confirmed
deaths traceable to marijuana *use*.)  The figures for cocaine
and heroin have been adjusted downward, in accordance with
the previous analysis, to include only those deaths due to drug
use per se.  The unadjusted death rate for these drugs is in
parentheses.

[glo note: the "previous analysis" details how overdose due to]
[ variable strength and toxic reactions and infections due to]
[ the uncontrolled black market in drugs causes most of the]
[ deaths due to "heroin and cocaine" use - glo]

Estimated Per Capita Death Rates by Drugs
----------------------------------------------------------
Drug  Users    Deaths per Year    Deaths per 100,000
----------------------------------------------------------
Tobacco 60 million 390,000 (a)    650
alcohol   100 million  150,000 (b)    150
Heroin 500,000    400 (c)      80 (400)
Cocaine   5 million   200 (c)      4 (20)
----------------------------------------------------------

[ glo note: the astute reader will notice that even contaminated]
[ street heroin is safer than cigarettes, and cocaine is much safer]
[ than even alcohol.  (the crack form is apparently more addicting]
[ than alcohol - but not nicotine, powder is less addicting than alcohol -]
[ see "Hooked   Not Hooked")  Pot is, well..., "absolutely safe" in]
[ terms of causing death itself.  And how many traffic deaths per]
[ year: 20,000+ ? - glo]

(a) "Reducing the Health Consequences of Smoking:
25 Years of Progress" Surgeon General's Report (1989).

(b) Estimates vary greatly, depending upon whether all health
consequences, or only those traditionally associated with
alcoholism, are considered.  The Fifth Special Report to the
U.S. Congress on Alcoholism and Health from the Secretary of
Health and Human Services contains two references indicating
a death toll of 200,000:  The report states, first, that alcohol
"plays a role in 10% of all deaths in the United States,"
which comes to about 200,000 deaths each year.  P. vi.  It further
states that present estimates of the death toll from alcohol
abuse are as high as 93.2 per 100,000.  Ibid., p. x.  This
ratio translates into a total of about 210,000.

(c) These figures were determined as follows:  Drug Abuse Warning
Network (DAWN) heroin and cocaine fatalities for 1984, 1985,
and 1986 were averaged.  The number of suicides was subtracted.
The figures were discounted to account for deaths in which
both heroin and cocaine played a role.  Since DAWN covers
about one-third of the nation's population but almost all
major urban areas where drug use florishes, totals were doubled
to arrive at yearly estimates of 2,000 for heroin deaths and
1,000 for cocaine deaths.  Finally, these figures were dis-
counted by 80 percent in accordance with the analysis presented
in the text

========== end of table 4, pg 47======================

-----------------------------------------------------------
For your perusal -- U.S. Surgeon General's Actuarial info

The following is a list of deaths by substance for 1990.

Tobacco . . . . . . . . . . . . 360,000    [legal]
Alcohol . . . . . . . . . . . . 130,000    [legal]
Prescribed drugs  . . . . . . .  18,675    [legal]
Caffeine  . . . . . . . . . . .   5,800    [legal]
Cocaine . . . . . . . . . . . .   2,390    [illegal]
Heroin  . . . . . . . . . . . .   2,147    [illegal]
Aspirin . . . . . . . . . . . .     986    [legal]
Marijuana . . . . . . . . . . .       0    [illegal]

