Quote:
All drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, should be ranked by a "harm" index, he said, with alcohol coming fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates, and methadone.
A harm index is the type of thing used for assessing pharmaceutical drugs like Paracetamol and antibiotics. It is corrected for number of people taking it and more interested in how dangerous it is as an overdose risk. If I understand correctly though this is just the press reporting on a lecture the Professor gave rather than any specific paper he has released.