Item — HN Reader

What harm does heroin do a person? Pharmacologically it does very little. Addiction is the main harm.

The vast majority of drug users do not have problems (almost every adult uses drugs) except problems with the legal systems.

This is well known and extensively documented. I would encourage you to study what has happened in Portugal over the last decade.

Different drugs have different effects. Alcohol is one of the more dangerous yet is legal and a huge business. More dangerous than cocaine, heroin, ecstasy.

See David Nutt's research from the UK.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/alcohol-more-harmful-heroi...

http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2010/08/06/professor-dav...

You are kidding, right? Do you know how many people die of opioid overdose every year?

I'm not arguing that criminalization has helped, so let's keep these two lines of thought separate. Is alcohol more dangerous than heroin? Perhaps, and David Nutt's research is very interesting on relative harms, but it doesn't magically make either one totally safe.

"You are kidding, right? Do you know how many people die of opioid overdose every year?"

Not of heroin overdose. Often "heroin overdose" is reported in the MSM but it is inaccurate