Addictive Potentials of Various Drugs

[Jasim]

I thought I might share some of this information. I found it rather interesting.

Adapted as a secondary source from Psychopharmacology: Drugs, The Brain, and Behavior - Jerrold S. Meyer & Linda F. Quenzer
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(Around 1994) two leading addiction experts rated various substances for their abuse potential in five categories:
(1) presence and severity of withdrawal symptoms;
(2) strength of the drug's reinforcing effects based on human and animal studies;
(3) degree of tolerance produced by the drug;
(4) degree of dependence produced by the drug based on difficulty quitting, relapse rates, and the percentage of users who become dependent; and
(5) degree of intoxication produced by the drug.


Substance Withdrawal Reinforcement Tolerance Dependence Intoxication
Henningfield ratings
Nicotine 3 4 2 1 5
Heroin 2 2 1 2 2
Cocaine 4 1 4 3 3
Alcohol 1 3 3 4 1
Caffeine 5 6 5 5 6
Marijuana 6 5 6 6 4
Benowitz ratings
Nicotine 3.5 4 4 1 6
Heroin 2 2 2 2 2
Cocaine 3.5 1 1 3 3
Alcohol 1 3 4 4 1
Caffeine 5 5 3 5 5
Marijuana 6 6 5 6 4

Source: Hilts, 1994.
(Sorry for the formatting. Here's a word table of this: Addictive Potentials Table.docx)

Click to see a better view of the table:
Addiction Potential Table.JPG

** 1 being most serious and 6 being least serious.
Averaging across all categories gives the least problematic substances as marijuana (average of 5.4) and caffeine (5.0), with the most problematic being heroin (1.9), followed by alcohol (2.5), cocaine (2.65), and nicotine (3.35). **

The ratings were made by Dr. Jack Henningfield, formerly Chief of Clinical Pharmacology at the Addiction Research Center of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Dr. Neil Benowitz, a prominent addiction researcher at the University of California at San Francisco.


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In general I didn't find it all that surprising. Interesting that marijuana is considered less problematic overall than even caffeine. And that alcohol is more problematic that cocaine.

I would like to see similar ratings for other types of drugs. I would also like to see something similar for health effects.

I couldn't find the primary source for this.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting table of research.

[Matt The Funk]

I thought this article was pretty interesting, would it be safe to assume that benzo and alc use might be interchangeable? At least in terms of addictive potential. Not too surprising to me on what substances were ranked.

[Jasim]

Originally Posted by Matt The Funk

I thought this article was pretty interesting, would it be safe to assume that benzo and alc use might be interchangeable? At least in terms of addictive potential. Not too surprising to me on what substances were ranked.

Possibly, but from what I understand a lot of pharmacological data was used in constructing these values. Benzodiazepines and alcohol both work on GABA receptors to produce an inhibitory response, however the pharmacology is slightly different.

Benzodiazepines act at an allosteric site on the chloride ion channel to open the channel, thereby causing hyperpolarization of the neuron (inhibition).
Alcohol also acts to open chloride ion channels, but in addition alcohol acts to block glutamate from acting on it's receptors (further inhibiting neuronal firing). Alcohol also affects the permeability and fluidity of cellular membranes.

Given these differences I would speculate that benzodiazepines would actually have a higher value (less addictive potential) than alcohol.

Good question.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Great informative answer.

[Richard_smoker]

there is significant clinical data which indicates that there is a definite overlap between benzo and alcohol-addictions.

Alcohol withdrawal symptoms are relieved with BENZOs in the first 3-4 days (while withdrawal is most dangerous and actually deadly). Similarly, benzo withdrawal is also a serious medical emergency that requires hospitalization and sometimes treatment WITH ANOTHER BENZO initially. Why? Often there are better, more-pharmacologically-sound ways of reducing the severity of withdrawal without just encouraging more addiction... i.e. long half-lives, partial agonism/antagonism of receptors. -DICK

Reputation Comments on this post:

thanks for the valuable info, and contributing