Experts Agree: The 5 Most Addictive Substances Ever

If you asked the question, “What’s the most addictive substance on the planet?” what answer would you get?

Would you be surprised that there are actually different answers to “what is most addictive?” The reason is simple: how addictive a substance is can be measured in different ways.

But regardless of how they’re ranked, the same substances keep cropping up on the list.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

A 2007 study, which based its scale on three factors (pleasure, psychological dependence, and physical dependence) and scored each drug on a scale from 0-3 (3 being the most addictive), came up with the following rank:

1. Heroin (3/3)

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2. Cocaine (2.4/3)

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3. Nicotine (2.2/3)

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4. Barbiturates (2/3)

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5. Alcohol (1.9/3)

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When a 2010 study looked only at the harm to users and those closest to them, the list came out slightly different, with cocaine at the top, closely followed by heroin and methamphetamines as far as doing harm to the user. Alcohol was added to the list (at the very top) when harm to friends and family was considered.