Substance abuse
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![Legal drugs are not necessarily safer. A 2010 study asked drug-harm experts to rank various illegal and legal drugs. Alcohol was found to be the overall most dangerous drug.](/Images/godic/202412/19/HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg1536.png")
![Correlations between drugs usage. Correlations between usage of 18 legal and illegal drugs: alcohol, amphetamines, amyl nitrite, benzodiazepine, cannabis, chocolate, cocaine, caffeine, crack, ecstasy, heroin, ketamine, legal highs, LSD, methadone, magic mushrooms (MMushrooms), nicotine and volatile substance abuse (VSA). Links indicate correlations with absolute values of Pearson correlation coefficient r above 0.4. Medium, strong, and very strong correlations are indicated by the colour of link.[14]](/Images/godic/202412/19/Correlations_between_drugs_usage1536.png")
![Total recorded alcohol per capita consumption (15+), in litres of pure alcohol[49]](/Images/godic/202412/19/Alcohol_by_Country1536.png")
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is a patterned use of a drug in which the user consumes the substance in amounts or with methods which are harmful to themselves or others, and is a form of substance-related disorder. Widely differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, medical and criminal justice contexts.