Alcohol More Deadly Than Ecstasy-Official

UK government adviser Professor David Nutt warned this week that alcohol causes up to two thousand time more fatalities a year than ecstasy and called for drug classifications to be reconsidered.

"Why is ecstasy illegal when alcohol, a considerably more harmful drug, is not," the Professor said in leading scientific magazine Physcopharmacology, "When we consider that the possession of a drug that is less dangerous than alcohol can lead to a seven year prison sentence, whereas alcohol use is actively promoted, perhaps David Cameron did not go far enough."

Professor Nutt was referring to Conservative leader David Cameron's recent suggestion that ecstasy shouldn't be Class A and made his comments some two years after describing E as 'unquestionably non addictive' and 'relatively safe in the short term'. The top scientist referred to statistics showing ecstasy can be linked to 10 premature deaths a year compared to 22,000 (thousand) attributed to alcohol, touching on a topic the Guardian suggested in 2004 was virtually taboo.

"In fact, though the authorities prefer not to make the comparison, roughly 20 deaths a year ranks ecstasy alongside electric blankets in a list of Britain's biggest killers," said the Guardian.