Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25634572›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2015

Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach.

Dirk W Lachenmeier, Jürgen Rehm

Abstract readComparative Study
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
48citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

48 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Risk Assessment Models for Heated Tobacco Products.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2026
    Article
  5. Drug harms in Canada: A multi-criteria decision analysis.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Cannabis use and cannabis use disorders and their treatment in the Europe.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2025
    Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Why are the police against drug policy liberalisation?Nordisk alkohol- & narkotikatidskrift : NAT · 2023
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Dirk W Lachenmeier1] Epidemiological Research Unit, Technische Universität Dresden, Klinische Psychologie &Psychotherapie, Dresden, Germany [2] Chemisches und Veterinäruntersuchungsamt (CVUA) Karlsruhe, Germany.
Jürgen Rehm1] Epidemiological Research Unit, Technische Universität Dresden, Klinische Psychologie &Psychotherapie, Dresden, Germany [2] Social and Epidemiological Research (SER) Department, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto, Canada [3] Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto (UofT), Toronto, Canada [4] Dalla Lana School of Public Health, UofT, Toronto, Canada [5] Dept. of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, UofT, Toronto, Canada [6] PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health &Addiction, Toronto, Canada.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A comparative risk assessment of drugs including alcohol and tobacco using the margin of exposure (MOE) approach was conducted. The MOE is defined as ratio between toxicological threshold (benchmark dose) and estimated human intake. Median lethal dose values from animal experiments were used to derive the benchmark dose. The human intake was calculated for individual scenarios and population-based scenarios. The MOE was calculated using probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations. The benchmark dose values ranged from 2 mg/kg bodyweight for heroin to 531 mg/kg bodyweight for alcohol (ethanol). For individual exposure the four substances alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and heroin fall into the "high risk" category with MOE < 10, the rest of the compounds except THC fall into the "risk" category with MOE < 100. On a population scale, only alcohol would fall into the "high risk" category, and cigarette smoking would fall into the "risk" category, while all other agents (opiates, cocaine, amphetamine-type stimulants, ecstasy, and benzodiazepines) had MOEs > 100, and cannabis had a MOE > 10,000. The toxicological MOE approach validates epidemiological and social science-based drug ranking approaches especially in regard to the positions of alcohol and tobacco (high risk) and cannabis (low risk).

Indexed as

CannabisEnvironmental ExposureEthanolHumansIllicit DrugsNicotianaProbabilityRisk AssessmentEthanolIllicit Drugs

Identifiers

PMID25634572
PMCPMC4311234

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-SA
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.