The beginning of the end of drug threads and the F.D.A. while I dream of a more reasoned world...

[Captain Blackout]

There are so many open factors, though. Tobacco may addict a consumer in one use, or it may take twenty. It could catalyze a harmful reaction and kill them in ten minutes, or never at all. The problem with health ratings and that sort are that it's hard to assign a number to a situation with so many variables.

Of course, that's my opinion. I say that we just educate people and hope that common sense gets them further than seventh grade.

What control group would you use as the basis of raw data? Or would you just use pre-existing stuff?

To use your example, in part because it's easier, we know a few things. 10 may be too high, but I do believe an 8 would be warranted. I used myself as an example when I posted the number above, (yes arbitrary but this was only ever meant as a high level overview.) Tobacco does have a high rate of addiction incidence and when addiction forms it is often strong, sometimes beyond the capabilities of the user to quit without significant assistance. Those factors clearly increase the addiction ratings and since the reasons are both mental and physical the numbers go up in both categories.

Obviously precision will take time. One advantage is that we can compare substances ratings when we have good data about which should be higher. The ease of comparison will help refine the data set. For initial data I would recommend using as much as is currently known as is practical. We could easily apply new information when tests come out. For direct testing we could test against well known substances. Medicines are tested against placebos all the time and I suspect water, oxygen, and some other substances would lend themselves well to easy scoring to begin building a baseline. The gradients within the numbering from 1 to 10 are flexible enough to allow for healthy scaling without going overboard in assigning your end points. If you are going to go outside the parameters you need a highly justifiable reason to do so. I will admit that my idea of using values over 10 for the LR may be counter-productive to my overall scheme, as an example.

Finally I fully support a fully funded educational system with human anatomy & physiology as a required part of curriculum from the moment we start teaching the tykes any science all the way through high school. You own in this life 1 body and while repairs and upgrades are possible, there's no substitute for knowing how to maintain your most precious equipment to the best of your ability.