There's a bit of a kerfuffle started up over a report by eminent science guru Colin Blakemore and David Nutt of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and MPs like the report and want change.

But there's something I would like to know about the research - if anyone finds an answer to this I'd be grateful.

Heroin and cocaine are in there as number one and two most harmful drugs (followed by barbiturates, methodone and then good ole grog incidentally - way ahead of LSD at 14th and Ecstacy at 18th). Now I presume first that they are not distinguishing between different forms of cocaine and that in that figure is both David Cameron's alleged adolescent sniff of white powder and crack or freebase cocaine use (nor presumably the millions of people who use the coca plant itself, or the tonic wine, toothpastes or cola drinks that once contained versions of cocaine).

But I'm intrigued about the heroin place. I was under the impression that biochemically heroin, properly dosed, was actually less damaging to the human body than alcohol - yes, overdosing and so on lead to hearts stopping (as do overdosing on alcohol and all depressants) which is definitely not good for the human body but, well managed, you can get a "high" without taking those sorts of risks and be less damaged by it than a similar high from alochol.

So is this research about the harm of a substance itself or the relative harm of each substance given the peculiar social circumstances in which it is taken. Or put it another way, are they trying to gauge the relative harm despite these drugs being illegal and therefore prone to tampering with and uncertain dosage and the whole criminal world that surrounds their supply chain?

My suspicion is that these placings would change again if all of these substances were legal and controlled.

Certainly any evidence based input to future discussion of illicit drugs is welcome but just changing how legal or otherwise a substance is seen as by the courts won't take away the criminal underworld that surrounds drugs and causes adulteration, misinformation and pushing people into multiple dependencies which they are then scared to deal with even when they want to.

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