Trade rubbishes 'LSD safer than beer' study

Trade rubbishes 'LSD safer than beer' study

31-07-2006 12:25

Written by: John Harrington

Trade leaders have rubbished a new report that ranks alcohol and tobacco as more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

MPs argued for alcohol and tobacco to be placed in a "scientific scale" to "give the public a better sense of the relative harms involved".

The report, from the Science and Technology Committee, ranks alcohol as fifth in the league table of harmful drugs, and tobacco ninth.

Professor David Nutt, who advises the Government on drug clbuttification, said alcohol should be a borderline Clbutt A drug and tobacco should be borderline Clbutt B.

Dave Daly, head of pub manager's union NALHM, said: "I think it's a disgrace that alcohol is clbutted near sugar. Of course alcohol is a mind-altering drug but it's controlled when it's taken within the pub."

Guild of Master Victuallers buttociation executive officer John Madden said: "I certainly wouldn't put alcohol in the same category as illegal drugs. "The aim of alcohol is to bring people together socially whereas drugs are something an individual would take on his own."

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