I've always like this graph.
I'm guessing it came from this study in The Lancet. Under "method," it says:Members of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, including two invited specialists, met in a 1-day interactive workshop to score 20 drugs on 16 criteria: nine related to the harms that a drug produces in the individual and seven to the harms to others. Drugs were scored out of 100 points, and the criteria were weighted to indicate their relative importance.
Does that only measure direct harm, such as hitting your wife in a drunken rage, or does it measure indirect harm as well? Does becoming a financial burden to your family members/the healthcare system or inadvertently spreading blood borne diseases through sharing dirty needles or broken crack pipes count as harm? What about people who steal to support their habits? I ask because there is a huge distinction. Where I live, there is a huge issue with heroin, meth, and crack cocaine and the problems these drugs are causing is widespread and terrifyingly palpable. Not a criticism of you tauta_krypta or a defense of alcohol use, but a serious inquiry into what that graph actually illustrates.
The paper's here. I haven't read it in detail, but it should include the examples you mentioned (harm to the community, economic cost, family adversities and crime are all categories they considered). Clearly it's going to be subjective to some extent, but given that it was published in The Lancet and I've seen it quoted quite a few times, I presume it was reasonably well done.