From the Associated Press, Business, September 18, 2008 Thursday, comes a story about the European Union stepping up its interdiction efforts.
Specifically cited statistics:
"Around 7,500 Europeans die of a drugs overdose ever year, according to statistics published by the EU's drugs monitoring agency in Lisbon, Portugal. The agency said in its report last year that the total number of people in the EU who use drugs, or have at some time taken them stands at 12 million for cocaine and 70 million for cannabis."
Or, roughly, less than 1 out of every 100,000 people that do drugs in Europe die from overdose.
I mean, really folks, are we kidding ourselves or what? With an OD death rate that low, how can we really argue that drugs are as dangerous as we're making them out to be... since by this rate taking drugs is safer than being around
water (death rate of accidental drownings is 1.2 per 100,000).
Posted by Malakkar Vohryzek