How we classify a product as dangerous, addictive, or relatively benign is based on an intricate intersection between chemistry and social norms. For example, while LSD is poorly regarded in society, alcohol, on the contrary, is a part of many adult social interactions despite being responsible for thousands of deaths each year around the world.
When a person becomes dependent on a substance, we consider that they have an addiction to it. So what substances are amazingly accepted, but actually very destructive?
The psychiatrist and director of Neuropsychopharmacology in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London (United Kingdom) has made a report together with a panel of experts, to put on the table which are the three main ones:
Heroin
Heroin is probably the most stigmatized of all illicit substances and the fear of its use and its corresponding levels of addiction are more than well founded. The brutal withdrawal symptoms it causes induce most to continue using rather than go through such a level of pain.
According to experts, heroin is the most dangerous and the most addictive of all drugs. It only takes a dose five times stronger “than normal” to cause death, that is, a ratio of 1: 5. (LSD or marijuana has a ratio of 1: 1000).
Alcohol
Alcohol is legal in most countries around the world. Although it is widely accepted as a way to relax, this substance is capable of increasing dopamine levels in the brain by 40-360%. Various experts have classified alcohol as the most harmful drug in society, based on its harm to users and those around them.
Cocaine
In movies they usually present it as a “rich man’s drug” but its effects are anything but glamorous. Cocaine and crack work by directly interfering with the activation of dopamine in the brain , resulting in “abnormal activation of the brain’s reward pathways.” In a similar way to alcohol, 21% of people who use this drug will become addicted at some point in their life.
