There are 20 million alcohol abusers and 1/2 million heroin addicts in this country or a ratio of 40:1. The ratio for total users is higher of course since casual drinking will lead to addiction much more rarely than heroin use. There are 2 heroin deaths per 100k total population annually and 28 per 100k for alcohol. Heroin is thus proportionally more deadly.
Sure, but you are comparing apples to oranges. Their methodology is not designed to encompass all the factors that can lead to fatalities, only the factors that may lead to acute overdose fatalities. So, looking at total deaths attributed to the substances is not comparable to what the study is trying to measure. We don’t know how many alcohol users, for example, died from overdose, versus from cirrhosis. Nor do we know how many heroin deaths were attributed to overdose, versus infected abscesses.