Strange Alcohol Study?

Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, and ranked them on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole, the Associated Press reports.

The analysis took into consideration how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body. It also looked at environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services and prison.

Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.

via AOL

Four Loko = Bam!!

This Four Loko hooch — subject of so many recent news reports, focus of so much alarm — definitely stood out. I’ll give it that.

“You like this?” asked the checkout clerk, skeptically, as I presented him with three gargantuan, 23.5-ounce cans, one of each of the Four Loko flavors that the store happened to have in stock: watermelon, lemonade and cranberry-lemonade.

“Never tried it,” I answered, adding that I was intent on assessing its come-on and appeal. “Any good?”

He shrugged, saying, “I sell a lot of it.”

While Four Loko has been on the market for only about two years, the dangers it poses are hardly new or isolated. Almost from the moment the caffeine-heavy energy drink Red Bull was introduced in the late 1980s, it was mixed with alcohol by revelers intent on bleariness without weariness. The vodka Red Bull even has its own moniker (a vod-bomb) and Wikipedia entry, and the Web is rife with recipes for Red Bull with rum or tequila or schnapps.

via NY Times