b0red5tiff said:

Ecstasy is the third most popular illegal drug in the UK, and claims about 50 lives each year.

Earlier this year North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom provoked outrage by claiming it was safer than aspirin.

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Cepheus said:

b0red5tiff said:

Ecstasy is the third most popular illegal drug in the UK, and claims about 50 lives each year.

Earlier this year North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom provoked outrage by claiming it was safer than aspirin.

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As opposed to 11,500 cause by alcohol (according to 2006 statistics).

Which means that ecstasy is 230x safer than alcohol?

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roquet said:

Cepheus said:

b0red5tiff said:

Ecstasy is the third most popular illegal drug in the UK, and claims about 50 lives each year.

Earlier this year North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom provoked outrage by claiming it was safer than aspirin.

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As opposed to 11,500 cause by alcohol (according to 2006 statistics).

Which means that ecstasy is 230x safer than alcohol?

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But you ignore the fact that alcohol use is far greater than ecstasy use. The news reports I've seen estimate 250,000 people taking ecstasy each weekend in the UK. I don't have any facts and figures but I imagine you might be looking at more than 30 million people (out of a population of 60 million) getting drunk each weekend. It would be interesting to know how many cases of fatal alcohol poisoning there are in the UK each year and compare that with the one death per 280,000 uses (assuming 250,000 users per week is correct) for ecstasy. I'm confident alcohol would come out as much the safer drug.

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Quote:

Ethanol is not a carcinogen.[90][91] However, the first metabolic product of ethanol, acetaldehyde, is toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic.

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Ego Death said:

Every advise booklet I've ever seen has been labeled "Drugs and alcohol" suggesting alcohol is a league of its own.

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DrOli said:

8758 total deaths in 2006
~3 million used ecstasy in last year 3.5%
141 deaths in 2004 via ecstasy
~85 million ~ UK population
~66% is average that people drank last week = lowest average of people that drink

=~56100000 ~ people drank in the last week in the UK


= ~0.01% died from alcohol
= ~0.004% died from ecstasy

Unfortunately getting good figures all from the same year is difficult, especially if done in 15 minutes or less. Shouldn't have changed too much, tried to get them between 2004-2006

If I have calculated properly, then the results speak clearly enough for themselves

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roquet said:

DrOli said:

8758 total deaths in 2006
~3 million used ecstasy in last year 3.5%
141 deaths in 2004 via ecstasy
~85 million ~ UK population
~66% is average that people drank last week = lowest average of people that drink

=~56100000 ~ people drank in the last week in the UK


= ~0.01% died from alcohol
= ~0.004% died from ecstasy

Unfortunately getting good figures all from the same year is difficult, especially if done in 15 minutes or less. Shouldn't have changed too much, tried to get them between 2004-2006

If I have calculated properly, then the results speak clearly enough for themselves

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Good stats but not really comparing like with like. Most alcohol deaths are cirrhosis of the liver in middle aged to elderly alcoholics who have been drinking excessively for many decades. Most ecstasy deaths are people in their teens or 20s who drop dead on a night out. For a true comparison of risk you need to look at how many times the dead alcoholic got drunk compared to how many times the dead ecstasy user took E.

Even then I think it only makes sense to compare cases of alcohol poisoning (a tiny proportion of the total) with ecstasy deaths, because both happen very quickly as a direct result of one occurrence of intoxication. Whereas with cirrhosis of the liver the sufferer has years, probably decades during which they must know they're drinking too much and have the option to change their ways.

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