Interesting stats particularly the relatively young age that people get involved in drug taking. As that data is nearly a decade out of date, I think you would find that for some drugs the bottom of the range is now lower.
The relatively high acceptance of marijuana obviously thought of, as a "softer" drug is I would suggest an indication that this is an older survey. In the last few years there has been a lot more research work done on the chronic effects of its long-term use, particularly when used from early teenage years. The consensus of medical opinion is moving to regard it as a drug implicated with serious psychiatric illness.
I repeat, the great problem with the illicit drugs is not so much the deaths they cause but the social and intellectual dysfunction"ing" of those who are chronic users. I would suggest that that reality is probably what drives the harshness of the laws against the trafficking of illicit drugs even more than an observation of the drug related deaths.
An interesting piece of information is that marijuana is 8 times more carcinogenic (long, throat and mouth cancers) than tobacco when it is smoked.
(Incidentally I've never used tobacco or alcohol so don’t have a personal axe to grind and am well aware of the great harms the use of tobacco and the abuse of alcohol cause).
