Celebrities and millionaires with no history of addiction research or helping addicts to reclaim destroyed lives campaigned globally in June to make drugs even more available – citing reasons based on theory not fact. David Raynes tells the truth

COMPARE STATISTICS: HARMS OF LEGAL vs ILLEGAL DRUGS

• “More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined,” states the US Centre for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_ statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_
mortality). UK figures are below.

• 880 deaths/year involve heroin or morphine
(latest figures from the Office of National Statistics at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/poi0311.pdf)

• 8,664 deaths/year involve alcohol (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1091

• 81,400 deaths of people in England alone aged 35+ were attributable to tobacco (http://www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/smoking10)

• An estimated 462,900 hospital admissions in England alone of people aged 35+ were attributable to smoking (ibid).

Source: Addiction Today July/August 2011