What's the world's most addictive drug?

Factual Questions
21

Why do you doubt it CC? Do you also want a cite proving that the sky is blue? :rolleyes

Before you accuse other posters of not knowing what they are talking about, you should learn a little about delirium tremens (DT).

http://www.brain.com/health_a2z/crs/dtremens.htm

Delirium Tremens usually occurs 3 - 5 days during acute alcohol withdrawal in late stage alcoholics. The consist of massive convulsions, seizures, and hallucinations. Before effective treatments were developed, they killed up to 20% of late stage alcoholics that experienced the DT stage. Even with modern treatments, up to 5% still die. In fact, most hospitals still keep a fifth of wiskey on hand in case a patient experiences a DT that does not respond to alternate medication.

22

I agree that the answers are going to vary a lot on what we consider “most addictive” to mean. Let me throw a few more considerations in.

At first, I thought of the “you can die from the withdrawal” factor as well, and I was thinking of barbiturates. As mentioned, if someone who is seriously dependent is taken off barbs cold turkey, they are very likely to have seizures which will kill them. Acute alcoholism, as has been noted, results in DT’s during withdrawal which is very similar.

However, I don’t think this makes these the “most addictive” drugs - a large segment, probably a majority, of the population uses alcohol in moderation, or even to occasional excess without becoming alcoholics. Many people drank WAY more than moderately at some point in their lives, say during college, and required no special treatment to tone down that behavior to acceptable levels for a responsible citizen later on. Seconal and its brethren are drugs that a doctor may prescribe, and many patients have had such prescriptions without becoming dependent, though the dependency potential is high.

If you base things on the certainty of becoming addicted if you mess with the stuff, I think you have to rate opiates and nicotine very high. Although, morphine and other opiates are available for medical use, including heroin in some countries. I’ve heard it claimed that when opiates are used as painkillers, if the dosage is carefully regulated to simply balance the symptoms, dependency does not occur.

If we base our conjectures on the extremes of behavior in addicts, I think we wind up with methamphetamine and cocaine in their various forms, particularly smoked (crack and ice).

If we base it on the frequency of addiction in the population at large, nicotine and caffeine are far and away the winners. If all of the coffee disappeared from the planet, a huge number of us would have severe headaches tomorrow. I write this while getting my personal morning fix of “Peet’s”.

23

I’ve given up the following, and here’s my list according to degree of difficulty:

Nicotine (I smoked for years after having TB)
Pills (Uppers and Downers)
Alcohol
Marijuana

I’m hysterically afraid of needles, and I’m glad crack
wasn’t around in my glory days.

24

Nah, Religion isn’t the most addictave drug. I’d equate religion to Opium since Opium did inspire a large portion of all religion and Religion is pretty much like Opium in the way it causes you to see things you would never see and dumb down your resolve. I did quit religion fairly easilly though.

25

Gee…did ya invent this theory on your own??? :wink:
But I would definitely agree with the nicotine as the most addictive drug…I’ve done the cold turkey day before and that has to be a living hell!!!

26

Do NOT even TRY to take away my coffee. :mad:
(pant pant pant)
Peace,
mangeorge

27

To RugbyMan: NO. I had some help from all of the rational people in this world. (Bring on GD or BBQ)

28

[Moderator watch FIRMLY on]
The OP is asking a real, rational question about the mental and physiological effects of various chemical substances, and he deserves an answer to that question. If manhattan or I see any further responses referring to religion, or the SDMB, or any other non-chemical, that response will be deleted. Some of these responses are appropriate for GD, and some of them are appropriate for MPSIMS, but none of them are appropriate for GQ. Stay on topic, people.

29

Well, it does depend on your definition of most addictive. In terms of withdrawl pains, I would definitly say heroine. But I have heard the caffine is the most addictive drug, but your body has the smallest chemical dependency on it. I guess that means that your body wants it the most, but doesn’t go to great measures to get you to get some for it.
That doesn’t make a lot of sense, I’m probably repeating what I heard wrong, but I think it’s something like that.

30

Really? I’m suprised to see Caffeine listed. I could go without it for days, or longer, it I had to. Maybe a short-term headache and some grouchiness, but not what I’d call withdrawal.
And decaf can be a (poor) substittute.
I don’t want to, but I can. There is a difference between really, really wanting some and being addicted to it. I’m addicted to nicotine, but not to Caffeine.
Is there any research that shows that Caffeine is, indeed, addictive?
Peace,
mangeorge

31

Chronos, I will staunchly defend my citation of “The Dread Tomato Addiction” as perfectly relevant to the issue at hand. This essay is even included in some medical textbooks as a lesson on the fallibility of statistics and their application to measurement of human suffering. The inescapable conclusion of this essay is that it is ridiculous to try to quantify an addiction, each addiction, no matter what it is, is a unique type of suffering that defies measurement. Thus, lists such as that cited by Cabbage, that rank one type of addiction as more difficult than another, are worthless. I give the readers SOME credit for intelligence, that they are able to draw their own conclusions from this essay.

But I will answer the question more directly. The most addictive substance is the one you are currently addicted to. It could be heroin or carbohydrates, it doesn’t matter. One’s own suffering over an addiction is the most difficult to conquer. Others’ addictions can only pale in comparison. I’ve seen people fall to pieces trying to kick an addiction that wouldn’t even rank on the medical scale as an addictive substance.

32

I’m sorry for being such a smart ass in General Questions, I promise I will never do it again.

33

While we often hear that “nicotine is more addictive than heroin”, there is never any scientific evidence presented to justify the claim. My guess would be that heroin users feel a much worse craving for their drug of choice, although never having used either, I can’t say for sure. Consider, for instance, the physical withdrawel symptoms. Cigarette smokers are cranky and eat food. Heroin addicts projectile vomit and attempt suicide. People don’t sell their posessions to smoke cigarettes; yes, there is of course a cost issue here, but I don’t see smokers burglarizing houses to pay for cigarettes if the price went to $20 a pack. In summary: it may be easier to become addicted to cigarettes than heroin, but I bet opiates are far more addictive.

34

Ah jeez, and I had a snappy response all worked up, too. :slight_smile:

Seriously though, it depends on how you look at it. You could easily argue alcohol and nicotine have the most addicts, simply because of their popularity. I think it would be hard to get any firm data on other substances simply because of their relative rarity. How many people are going to tell a researcher about their addiction to licking flypaper?

35

Seems to me like the most addictive substance is what the one you’re addicted to. The toughest to quit is whatever one you’re trying to quit. Its all subjective. However, my question is, if nicotine has a 100, how come there is no such thing as a “nicotine whore?” How come you don’t need to be weened off nicotine with methodone?

36

The reason they can say that nicotine is “more” addictive than heroin is because the word “more” is meaningless in this cintext; it’s like the old 10% of the brain thing. It sounds good until you stop to think of it and realize “10% of WHAT?”

I do think that in addition to the severity of withdrwl symptoms and the number of people addicted, another factor would be the number of exposures it took to become addicted. For example, it takes a couple years of smoking to delvelop a really strong nicotine addiction. I have never done heroin or coke, but it has been my impression that you can suffer physical withdrawl sysmptoms after only a few uses.

37

Qwertyasdfg asks, in part;

Well, Qwertyasdfg, there are those girls who will flirt with a (older) man to get a cigarette. Not sex, maybe, but the hint of a promise.
Plus, there are all those “quit smoking” remedies on the market. Nicoderm for example, and a prescription drug whose name eludes me at the moment.
Are you a smoker? You seem worried.
Peace,
mangeorge

38

The one that YOU CAN’T QUIT.

I’ve tried heroin and you could never get me hooked on that even if you force fed me it. Afterwards, I would rather just be sick and come down and go through the withdrawals because I DON’T LIKE THE HIGH.

Meth is a different story… Thank gawd those days are over!

I won’t go into my story of drug abuse. But one thing I do know, the most addictive drug, is the one that causes you to give up things in your life that should be important in order to pursue your “high”.

IMHO, I think the term “addiciton” is only a cop out for someone that just wants to continue a destructive lifestyle simply because they don’t want to be responsible for their actions. I realize there are physical withdrawals associated with many drugs, but those withdrawals are not neccessarily what drives the person to the next “fix”.

People that are “addicted” to things like heroin, meth, coke, or even cigarettes and coffee can easily be taken off those things with very little effort. People that are incarcerated these days are typically not allowed to smoke anymore and there doesn’t seem to be any surge in jailhouse murders because of it. People just learn to live without their drug of choice for whatever period of time is required (although in some prisons it is easy to get drugs, they are not cheap).

In closing, it is ludicrous for anyone to say “I can’t quit”. Yes you can. You just don’t want to.

39

LSD is addictive? Never heard of that, not in any of the research I did on it. LSD builds up such a fast tolerance, not to mention the necessary time involved to trip, that addiction just doesn’t happen.

In fact, none of the psychadelics (not the psychadelic amphetamines!) AFAI ever knew were addictive either physically or mentally.

Nothing to be addicted to, physically, becuase chemistry is a funny thing. Mentally, well, trips wear ya’ out (this is seriously what I read in my high school health book back in the day!) and people aren’t likely to do it all the time.

40

All the addictive drugs known involve the dopaminergic, gaba-ergic, and endorphin classes of neurotransmitters that occur naturally in the nervous system.

As a clinical neurologist who has treated many hundreds of patients with various drug addictions (not necessarily for those addictions…they just happened to be addicts), I would say that there is not much difference between the strength of addiction to alcohol, opiates, sedative-hypnotics, cocaine/amphetamine, nicotine and caffeine. All are highly addictive, and if the host-drug conditions are right, they can be downright overpowering. I have even had a few patients with Parkinson’s Disease who were clearly addicted to their Sinemet…Any other neurologists out there will appreciate this comment.

While we’re at it, certain behaviors are felt to be addictive in some. Gambling. Sex. Driving fast. Shopping…

Many of these behavioral addictions seem to depend upon the effect of dopamine on the limbic system.

Personally, I’m addicted to The Straight Dope. Uncut and powerfully addicting. It should be illegal.