The Dangerous Dozen

The Dangerous Dozen: The 12 Most Addictive Substances Around the Globe

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An estimated 23 million Americans and nearly 30 million people worldwide are addicted to a substance—from alcohol to prescription medications to illicit drugs.

Addiction is the unintended outcome of misusing or overusing an addictive substance. While there is much debate over the role that free will or choice plays in addiction, it can certainly be argued that no one who takes a drink, drug or prescription medication sets out to become an addict. More likely, they take the substance to find a way to feel good (or at least better), relieve pain, forget their problems or numb difficult feelings. If that substance is highly addictive, the substance is more likely to be repeated.

Addictive Substances and the Road to Addiction

With repeated use of addictive substances comes greater risk for addiction. The more addictive the substance, the more likely it is that a person rapidly progresses from physical tolerance and dependence to addiction—requiring increased doses to achieve the same effects, followed by cravings and withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop. This progression is even more likely if a person has other contributing factors of addiction, including:

• Heredity (family history of addiction)
• Anxiety, depression or another mental health condition
• Childhood abuse or lack of supervision/family involvement
• Poor social skills and/or peer pressure

In many cases, addiction occurs before a person realizes they have lost control. The stigma of addiction often shames them into hiding their problem, preventing them from seeking help to stop the cycle of substance abuse. As the addiction continues, denial and other addiction-related behaviors set in, making treatment and recovery more challenging, though not impossible.

12 Highly Addictive Substances

Which drugs are the most addictive? Answers to this question vary depending on which research team or addiction expert you speak with and their estimation of a substance’s impact on the brain’s reward system, the body’s nervous system, how quickly a person can become hooked on it, and/or how challenging or dangerous the substance’s withdrawal symptoms can be. We have used their general criteria to create a list of the 12 most highly addictive substances in the world, starting with the “most addictive” at the top:

1. Opiates (heroin, opium, morphine and others)

Most experts agree that heroin is one of the most highly addictive drugs, though most drugs in the opiate category should probably share the top position on the list. In research studies, heroin is shown to increase levels of “feel good” neurotransmitters in the brain’s reward system by nearly 200%, causing a euphoria that makes it extremely addictive. Derived from opium, which is extracted from poppy seeds, opium is produced illicitly from poppies harvested in Afghanistan, Burma and Colombia, while most opiate medications are produced legally from poppies harvested in India, Turkey and Australia.

2. Opioids (oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl and others)

Opioids are synthetic opiates. According to the World Drug Report, opioids were the most harmful drug type in 2017, accounting for 70% of the negative health impact associated with substance abuse worldwide. Prescription opioids, like OxyContin and Vicodin, can increase levels of “feel good” neurotransmitters in the brain’s reward system, though not as dramatically as heroin does unless a person significantly increases their dosage. A prescribed dosage typically ranges from 20 to 50 MME (morphine milligram equivalents), but it was found that 1 in 32 patients who died of opioid-related overdose in past years had increased their daily dose to more than 200 MME. Many people who become addicted to prescription opioids later turn to illicit opiates like heroin, which produce even more powerfully euphoric effects at a lower price.

3. Crack (crack cocaine)

A version of cocaine that is made by mixing baking soda or ammonia with powdered cocaine, crack is typically smoked. Crack has a lower purity level than cocaine, but inhalation of the crack smoke produces a completely different result—the “high” is more intense and happens more rapidly. A crack high is all-consuming, producing euphoria, increased energy and self-confidence—feelings that last roughly 10 minutes. The dramatic but short-lived effects lead to an intense craving for more. Thus, repeated use, addiction and withdrawal symptoms can set in quickly. Withdrawal symptoms may include extreme agitation, depression and insomnia, which drive the user to seek more of the drug.

4. Nicotine (tobacco)

It is estimated that more than 1 billion people worldwide smoke cigarettes and a majority of them are addicted to the nicotine in the tobacco. Addiction occurs because when you smoke a cigarette, the nicotine and other addictive additives in the tobacco absorb quickly into the bloodstream, reaching your brain within seconds and impacting the acetylcholine receptors to cause an adrenaline release. The adrenaline surge gives you a lift in alertness, mood and energy. The effects fade quickly, resulting in fatigue and a mild depression, prompting the desire for another cigarette and a lift from the nicotine. Continued smoking causes brain changes that are long-term, which is why people can recover from acute withdrawal symptoms within a week of quitting smoking, but they may crave a cigarette for months or even years after. How dangerous is nicotine? Despite decades of awareness campaigns warning that smoking leads to cancer, stroke and heart disease among other health problems, millions of people continue to smoke, resulting in more than 7 million tobacco-related deaths per year worldwide.

5. Alcohol

A study from England indicates that alcohol may increase the level of dopamine in the brain’s reward system up to 350%, but more research is needed to make this determination. Experts agree that alcohol is highly addictive and ranks high on the addictiveness list. Possibly because it is legal, alcohol addiction is widespread—more than 17 million American adults have an alcohol use disorder, and more than 3 million people die around the world every year as a result of harmful alcohol use. Popular as a relaxant (depressant), alcohol can cause the user to feel less inhibited and, thus, more comfortable in social settings. This effect, however, can lead to repeated use and larger doses, which can lead to addiction and health problems like alcohol poisoning, liver disease, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Alcohol withdrawal is excruciating and sometimes deadly, which is why medically assisted detox is needed.

6. Meth (crystal meth, methamphetamines)

A “home-brewed” mixture, meth is made from combining industrial chemicals with amphetamines. When people smoke, snort or inject meth, it impacts the brain’s reward system quickly and dramatically, causing levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine to spike an estimated 10 times higher than normal, resulting in a rush of adrenaline that makes the user more alert and energetic. The come-down from the drug is also dramatic, causing a drastic drop in energy and mood, making the user want more almost immediately. Meth is as destructive as it is addictive because repeated use can permanently damage the neurons, leading to a significant decrease in the natural neurotransmitter levels in a user’s system. This causes users to seek more meth in an effort to regain even normal mood and energy function.

7. Methadone

This opioid acts like other opioids in many ways, but blocks the euphoria that most opioids produce when they activate the brain’s opioid receptors. For this reason, methadone (and its cousin, buprenorphine) is often used in medically assisted treatment (MAT) for opiate/opioid addiction. Methadone is used as a sort of replacement drug for heroin and other opiates to help the addicted person detox and recover. The unfortunate thing is that, even though methadone doesn’t cause euphoria, it is a highly addictive substance. This means that while methadone can be effective in keeping heroin addicts from relapsing and overdosing, some people become addicted. It’s important for the supervising addiction specialist to taper them off methadone gradually and monitor them closely.

8. Cocaine

Researchers estimate that roughly 20% of people who try cocaine become addicted to the stimulant, and though it now receives less media attention than it did in the past, cocaine remains a widely abused drug around the world with millions of people addicted. Like other highly addictive substances, cocaine stimulates sharp spikes in “feel-good” neurotransmitters in the brain’s reward center. With repeated use, cocaine causes natural production of these neurotransmitters to slow down. Once cocaine causes natural dopamine production to diminish, the user craves more of the drug to feel good again, leading to habitual use.

9. Amphetamines

A group of synthetic psychoactive drugs that stimulate the central nervous system (CNS), amphetamines are prescribed (Adderall, Dexedrine) to treat narcolepsy, obesity and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They cause a spike in energy, alertness or excitability; their effect in the brain’s reward center gives many users a sense of pleasure, leading to their popularity as street drugs, where they are known as “uppers” or “speed.” These uppers are also popular as appetite suppressants or diet aids. Physical tolerance happens quickly, prompting users to take larger doses, which can lead to addiction and psychotic episodes. Withdrawal includes depression, anxiety and fatigue—symptoms so extreme they drive repeated use.

10. Benzos (benzodiazepines)

Benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax and Klonopin) are usually prescribed to calm the nerves and the drugs do this by magnifying the effects of the brain’s GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid)—a natural calming chemical. Unfortunately, the body compensates by decreasing sensitivity in its GABA receptor cells, which can cause a person to become physically dependent on benzos to increase GABA’s effects—namely, anxiety reduction and a sense of calm. Ironically, some people trying to overcome other addictions will take benzos to manage the severe anxiety they experience as a withdrawal symptom, and soon become addicted to benzos instead. Withdrawal from benzos can also include panic attacks.

Flunitrazepam (Rohypnol or “roofies”) is another benzo that is not approved as a prescription drug in the US, but is used illegally as a club drug or “date rape” drug. The drug is often taken with alcohol and causes a relaxed feeling that begins in about 15 minutes and can progress to difficulty with motor control and loss of consciousness (and memory of what happened while under the drug’s influence). The effects can last 4-5 hours.

11. GHB (Gamma-hydroxybutyrate)

A popular drug at nightclubs, parties and raves, GHB or “G” is a depressant that affects the central nervous system and GABA causing a relaxed feeling in users, who often mix it with alcohol to amplify their intoxication. Abused as a “date rape” drug, GHB’s interplay with alcohol is thought to cause the user to build up a tolerance to it, causing them to increase their dosage to feel its effects, resulting in addiction. The effects of GHB include euphoria and increased sex drive, but it can also lead to hallucinations, loss of consciousness, amnesia, coma and overdose—particularly when mixed with alcohol and other substances. Withdrawal symptoms can last several days and include anxiety, insomnia, delirium, nausea and vomiting, among others.

12. MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine, known as Molly and Ecstasy)

As with other addictive substances on this list, the brain’s “feel good” neurotransmitters are impacted by Ecstasy, a synthetic psychoactive that is popular as a recreational drug—particularly among young adults. Its effects include euphoria, relaxation, heightened sensation and empathy, which drive repeated use. Research of Ecstasy’s properties are based primarily on animal studies, showing that as the drug causes surges of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain, it also damages the associated neurons, leading to rapid-onset physical tolerance and negative withdrawal symptoms as the drug leaves the system. Withdrawal symptoms include fatigue, inability to concentrate, appetite loss and depression.

Even though experts can’t always agree on the exact criteria for assessing which drugs are most addictive, they appear to agree that addiction treatment programs are the safest and most effective way to overcome problems with these 12 highly addictive substances. Professional addiction treatment and rehabilitation, usually starting with medical detox, makes recovery possible.

World's 10 deadliest street drugs

10. Purple Drank

One of the more unusual drugs around at the moment, purple drank was popularised in 90’s hip hop culture, with the likes of Jay Z and Big Moe all mentioning it in their songs. It is a concoction of soda water, sweets and cold medicine, and is drunk due to cold medicine's high codeine content, which gives the user a woozy feeling. However it can also cause respiratory issues and heart failure. 

9. Scopolamine

Scopolamine is a derivative from the nightshade plant found in the Northern Indian region of South America (Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela). It is generally found in a refined powder form, but can also be found as a tea. The drug is more often used by criminals due its high toxicity level (one gram is believed to be able to kill up to 20 people) making it a strong poison. However, it is also believed that the drug is blown into the faces of unexpecting victims, later causing them to lose all sense of self-control and becoming incapable of forming memories during the time they are under the influence of the drug. This tactic has reportedly been used by gangs in Colombia where there have been reports of people using scopolamine as a way to convince victims to rob their own homes. 

The CIA also revealed in 1993 that they had trialled the drug as a truth serum during the Cold War. However it is believed it wasn’t effective due to scopolamine’s ability to induce hallucinations at a low dosage.

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8. Heroin

Founded in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, heroin is one of the world’s oldest drugs. Originally it was prescribed as a strong painkiller used to treat chronic pain and physical trauma. However, in 1971 it was made illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Since then it has become one of the most destructive substances in the world, tearing apart communities and destroying families. 

The side effects of heroin include inflammation of the gums, cold sweats, a weak immune system, muscular weakness and insomnia. It can also damage blood vessels which can later cause gangrene if left untreated. 

World's 10 deadliest street drugs

• 10show all

7. Crack cocaine

Crack cocaine first came about in the 1980’s when cocaine became a widespread commodity within the drug trafficking world. Originally cocaine would have attracted a high price tag due to its rarity and difficulty to produce, but once it became more widespread the price dropped significantly. This resulted in drug dealers forming their cocaine into rock like shapes by using baking soda as a way of distilling the powder down into rock form. People were doing this because it allowed for them to sell cocaine at a lower quantity and to a higher number of people. 

Since then it has gone on to form one of the biggest drug epidemics in the world, and during the height of its popularity it was believed that over 10 million people were crack cocaine users in the US alone.  

The side effects of crack cocaine include liver, kidney and lung damage, as well as permanent damage to blood vessels, which can often lead to heart attacks, strokes, and ultimately death.

6. ,Crystal meth

Not just famous because of a certain Walter H White, but also because it is one of the most destructive drugs in the world. First developed in 1887, it became widely used during the Second World War when both sides would give it to their troops to keep them awake. It is also believed that the Japanese gave it to their Kamikaze pilots before their suicide missions. 

After the war crystal meth was prescribed as a diet aid and remained legal until the 1970s. Since then it has fallen into the hands of Mexican gangs and has become a worldwide phenomenon, spreading throughout Europe and Asia. 

The effects of crystal meth are devastating. In the short-term users will become sleep depraved and anxious, and in the long-term it will cause their flesh to sink, as well as brain damage and damage of the blood vessels. 

5. AH-7921

AH-7921 is a synthetic opioid that was previously available to legally purchase online from vendors until it became a Class A in January 2015. The drug is believed to have 80% of the potency of morphine, and became known as the ‘legal heroin’. 

While there has only been one death related to AH-7921 in the UK, it is believed to be highly dangerous and capable of causing respiratory arrest and gangrene.

4. Flakka

Flakka is a stimulant with a similar chemical make-up to the amphetamine-like drug found in bath salts. While the drug was originally marketed as a legal high alternative to ecstasy, the effects are significantly different. The user will feel an elevated heart rate, enhanced emotions, and, if enough is digested, strong hallucinations. The drug can cause permanent psychological damage due to it affecting the mood regulating neurons that keep the mind’s sertraline and dopamine in check, as well as possibly causing heart failure.  

3. Bath salts

Bath salts are a synthetic crystalline drug that is prevalent in the US. While they may sound harmless, they certainly aren’t the sort of salts you drop into a warm bath when having a relaxing night in. They are most similar to mephedrone, and have recently been featured throughout social media due to the ‘zombification’ of its users.

The name comes from the fact that the drug was originally sold online, and widely disguised as bath salts. The side effects include unusual psychiatric behaviour, psychosis, panic attacks and violent behaviour, as well as the possibility of a heart attack and an elevated body temperature.

2. Whoonga

Whoonga is a combination of antiretroviral drugs, used to treat HIV, and various cutting agents such as detergents and poisons. The drug is widely available in South Africa due to South Africa’s high rate of HIV sufferers, and is believed to be popular due to how cheap it is when compared to prescribed antiretrovirals. 

The drug is highly addictive and can cause major health issues such as internal bleeding, stomach ulcers and ultimately death. 

1. Krokodil

Krokodil is Russia’s secret addiction. It is believed that over one million Russians are addicted to the drug. 

Users of krokodil are attracted to the drug due to its low price; it is sold at £20 a gram while heroin is sold for £60. However, krokodil is considered more dangerous than heroin because it is often homemade, with ingredients including painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid and industrial cleaning agents. This chemical make-up makes the drug highly dangerous and likely to cause gangrene, and eventually rotting of the flesh.

The 10 Worst Presidents of America

Worst Presidents: George W. Bush (2001-2009)

The second Bush to lead the free world in a decade, 'Dubya' had the misfortune of guiding America through the 9/11 attacks.

JIM LO SCALZO FOR USN&WR

GEORGE W. BUSH'S TENURE as commander in chief began with one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history. After a tense election night, it became apparent that the race between Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore would be decided by Florida's electoral votes.

Bush appeared to have won by the skin of his teeth, but a series of recounts uncovered a voting debacle in which the fate of the election appeared to rest on the interpretation of a "hanging chad."

That is, until the Supreme Court halted a subsequent recount and granted Bush the seat in the Oval Office. Though Bush likely would have claimed Florida anyway if the limited recounthad been completed in its entirety, Gore managed to win the popular vote. The controversial election set the tone for a presidency in which Bush could not seem to catch a break.

No president expects to preside over an attack on American soil, much less during his first year in office. The devastating events of Sept. 11, 2001, forever changed the course of American history, and Bush found himself at the helm during some of the country's most sobering hours.

There probably wasn't a "right" way for Bush to respond; no executive action could have erased one of America's darkest days. But with December's conclusion of the Afghan war, the longest war in American history, many Americans felt pretty certain the "right" answer was not prolonged troop deployment in Afghanistan – and later Iraq, despite a general lack of evidence to support the claim that the country held "weapons of mass destruction" – and a combined war price tag that will likely be $4 trillion to $6 trillion. 

Though actions speak louder than words, "Dubya" will be remembered both for what he did and what he said. An Internet search for "Bushisms" yields 186,000 results on "the Google," Bush's cringe-worthy name for the popular search engine. Bush made an art of jumbling and inventing words, at one point suggesting his opponents simply "misunderestimated" him.

Maybe we're all misunderestimating Bush. News broke in October that there may have been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after all. Maybe Bush knew what he was talking about – or maybe he got lucky.

Either way, Bush's infamy has earned him a spot in our Top 10 Worst Presidents list. He is the only surviving member of the list and has taken up painting in the aftermath of his presidency. Let us all hope Bush can paint more deftly than he can pronounce "nuclear."

Worst Presidents: Richard Nixon (1969-1974)

Though politically gifted, he will forever be associated with the Watergate scandal and his resignation

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

NIXON'S FAILINGS WERE the stuff of dark tragedy: uneven judgment and a deeply suspicious character verging on delusional, combined with great political gifts and considerable vision.
He not only opened up U.S. relations with China but also reached an important arms-limitation agreement with the Soviet Union. He slowly, if not quite steadily, extricated America from the quagmire of Vietnam. He supported a number of progressive domestic policies, including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He stepped up the war against crime on multiple fronts.
But the drama of Nixon Agonistes concludes with his resignation under a cloud of wrongdoing. For obstructing the investigation of a petty crime committed by some of his own campaign operatives—an attempt to burglarize the Democratic National Headquarters—Nixon's name and reputation will forever be linked with one word: Watergate.

Worst Presidents: Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)

He was known as a poor communicator who fueled trade wars and exacerbated the Depression.

(COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES/NEWSMAKERS)

HERBERT HOOVER, THE 31st president, and Richard Nixon, the 37th, share the ninth spot for entirely different kinds of failings. And both had offsetting qualities and achievements that keep them off the 10-worst list of some major rankings.
Hoover, elected on the eve of the Great Depression, came to the office with the skills of a consummate technocrat and manager. The Iowa native and Stanford-educated engineer ran massive relief operations in Europe both during and after World War I. He was commerce secretary under Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
Once the Depression set in, he lowered taxes and started public works projects to create jobs, but he steadfastly resisted outright relief.
Hoover's rigid adherence to conservative principles may not have been his greatest problem. A poor communicator, he came across as mean-spirited and uncaring. The homeless dubbed their make-shift shanty towns Hoovervilles.
Perhaps his single greatest policy blunder was supporting and signing into law a a tariff act that fueled international trade wars and made the Depression even worse. But style points alone would have cost him the election against FDR.
For all his good qualities, it is fair to say that Hoover failed to rise to the

(COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES/NEWSMAKERS)

ALAS, POOR HARRISON.
That the ninth president makes any list at all is an act of scholarly injustice. The Virginian's greatest claim to fame was defeating the Shawnees in 1811 at the Battle of Tippecanoe.
Delivering the longest inaugural address in U.S. history, he came down with pneumonia that made his 30-day presidency the shortest in U.S. history.

Death would seem sufficient punishment for long-windedness; historians are guilty of piling on.eates

Worst Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)

Serving right after Johnson, he presided over an outbreak of corruption, but had good intentions.t challenge of his time.

(COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES/NEWSMAKERS)

AT NO. 7, ULYSSES S. Grant has risen from No. 2 on the 1948 Schlesinger list probably because of the same revisionist take on Reconstruction that lowered Johnson in the eyes of historians.
Although there is no way to overlook the widespread graft and corruption that occurred on his presidential watch —it was at the time unprecedented in scope— he was in no way a beneficiary of it.
"My failures have been errors of judgment," the popular former Civil War general admitted, "not of intent."
More important, the 18th president now receives plaudits for his aggressive prosecution of the radical reform agenda in the South. His attempts to quash the Ku Klux Klan (suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and ordering mass arrests) and his support for the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were controversial and may have produced only short-lived gains for African-Americans, but Grant's intentions were laudable and brave. He also worked for the good of American Indians, instituting the reservation system as an imperfect, last-ditch effort to protect them from extinction.
Grant's reputation may continue to rise as a result of sympathetic biographies and studies—and because of a renewed appreciation of his own excellent memoir, considered to be the best ever produced by a former president.

Worst Presidents: John Tyler (1841-1845)

He was a stalwart defender of slavery who abandoned his party's platform once he was president.

AT SIXTH WORST, Virginian John Tyler was the first president to rise by succession from the vice presidency—when William Harrison succumbed to pneumonia only 30 days after being sworn into office.
Born into the planter aristocracy, Tyler began his political career as a Jefferson Republican, opposing Federalist schemes for high protective tariffs and federally funded "internal improvements."
As a U.S. senator, he supported President Andrew Jackson's crusade against the national bank but soon fell out with Old Hickory when he quashed South Carolina's attempt to nullify a modest tariff. (Tyler, a steady champion of states' rights and slavery, defended South Carolina's prerogative to secede if it wished.)
Joining the young Whig Party, he ran with popular war hero Harrison, and the ticket of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" trounced the Democratic candidates.
But once he became president, Tyler opposed everything his adopted party stood for, including a national bank. One fellow Whig accused Tyler of reviving "the condemned and repudiated doctrines and practices of the worst days of Jackson's rule." The entire Harrison-appointed cabinet resigned, and Tyler had to fight an attempt to impeach him.
His one triumph: establishing the principle that a vice president who succeeds to the top office has no less authority than an elected president. No small accomplishment when most of hisown party despised him.

THE 13TH PRESIDENT CAME to office on the coattails of a popular war hero, Zachary Taylor, who died in office a little over a year after becoming president.
Born in a log cabin in central New York, Fillmore made his way to politics and the Whig Party via school teaching and the law. A largely ignored vice president, he got Taylor's attention when he told him he would support the Compromise of 1850 if the Senate came to a deadlock. Consisting of five separate acts (including the Fugitive Slave Law, compelling the federal government to return fugitive slaves to their masters), the compromise stood for everything Taylor opposed.
When the ailing president died, his successor became an even more vigorous champion of the compromise measures. Fillmore's actions may have averted a national crisis and postponed the outbreak of the Civil War, but it was peace bought at an unconscionable price.
Two decades after the notorious deal, the New York Times opined that it was Fillmore's "misfortune to see in slavery a political and not a moral question." Misfortune might now seem too kind a word.

Worst Presidents: Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)

His fervor for expanding the borders helped set the stage for the Civil War.

EXTENDING THE LIST OF timid pre-Civil War compromisers, Pierce was a Jackson Democrat from New Hampshire whom Whig foes called "doughface"—a northerner with southern principles.
Elected as the 14th president, the handsome Mexican War veteran believed ardently in national expansion even at the cost of adding more slave states. To that end, he vigorously supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which, along with the earlier Compromise of 1850, effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
Less successfully, he proposed annexing Cuba, by arms if necessary, but his opponents, suspecting the addition of a new slave state, outed the plan and ultimately forced him to renounce it. He did manage to secure U.S. recognition of a dubious regime in Nicaragua, presided over by an American proslavery adventurer, William Walker, who had instigated an insurrection and installed himself as president.
Theodore Roosevelt later wrote of Pierce that he was "a servile tool of men worse than himself ... ever ready to do any work the slavery leaders set him." Not even a fawning campaign biography written by Pierce's college friend Nathaniel Hawthorne could offset such damning reviews.

Worst Presidents: Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)

He survived impeachment after opposing Reconstruction initiatives including the 14th amendment.

ANDREW JOHNSON HAS risen in scholarly dis-esteem since the publication of Arthur Schlesinger's 1948 poll probably because the post-Civil War Reconstruction has enjoyed a thorough scholarly face-lift, and Johnson is now scorned for having resisted Radical Republican policies aimed at securing the rights and well-being of the newly emancipated African-Americans.
Before he was president, historian Woodrow Wilson did a lastingly thorough job of sullying Reconstruction, depicting it as a vindictive program that hurt even repentant southerners while benefiting northern opportunists, the so-called Carpetbaggers, and cynical white southerners, or Scalawags, who exploited alliances with blacks for political gain.
A native North Carolinian of humble origins, Johnson worked as a tailor and eventually settled in Tennessee, where he entered politics as a populist Jackson Democrat. He was elected to several high offices, including U.S. senator.
Though no abolitionist, he was a staunch supporter of the Union and the only southerner to retain his seat in the Senate after secession. For his loyalty, Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee, where he set about suppressing Confederates and championing black suffrage. (Tennessee became the first southern state to end slavery by state law.) Lincoln selected him as his running mate in 1864, and Johnson became the 17th president only a month after being sworn in as vice president.
Unfortunately, his subsequent battles with Radical Republicans in Congress over a host of Reconstruction measures revealed political ineptitude and an astonishing indifference toward the plight of the newly freed African-Americans. In addition to vetoing renewal of the Freedman's Bureau and the first civil rights bill, he encouraged opposition to the 14th Amendment.
An increasingly nasty power struggle—in which Congress wrongly attempted to strip him of certain constitutionally delegated powers—resulted in the first presidential impeachment and a near conviction. Failing to be renominated, he returned to Tennessee and was again elected to the U.S. Senate.
History's current verdict may prove to be overly harsh, but it is fair to say that Johnson did turn a blind eye to those southerners who tried to undo 

Worst Presidents: Warren Harding (1921-1923)

He was an ineffectual leader who played poker while his friends plundered the U.S. treasury.what the Civil War had accomplished.

WARREN G. HARDING'S claim to infamy rests on spectacular ineptitude captured in his own pathetic words: "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here."
A former newspaperman and publisher who won a string of offices in his native Ohio, he was an unrestrained womanizer noted for his affability, good looks, and implacable desire to please. It was good, his father once told him, that he hadn't been born a girl, "because you'd be in the family way all the time. You can't say no."
Harding should have said no when Republican Party bosses in the proverbial smoke-filled room (a phrase that originated with this instance) made him their 11th-hour pick for the highest office. He was so reassuringly vague in his campaign declarations that he was understood to support both the foes and the backers of U.S. entry into the League of Nations, the hottest issue of the day.
Once in the White House, the 29th president busied himself with golf, poker, and his mistress, while appointees and cronies plundered the U.S. government in a variety of creative ways. (His secretary of the interior allowed oilmen, for a modest under-the-table sum, to tap into government oil reserves, including one in Teapot Dome, Wyo.)
"I have no trouble with my enemies," Harding once said, adding that it was his friends who "keep me walking the floor nights." Stress no doubt contributed to his death in office, probably from a stroke.
Almost a decade later, his former attorney general called Harding "a modern Abraham Lincoln whose name and fame will grow with time." That time is still a long way off.

Worst Presidents: James Buchanan (1857-1861)

He refused to challenge the spread of slavery or the growing bloc of states that became the Confederacy

A PENNSYLVANIA-BORN Democrat, deeply devout in his faith and the only bachelor elected to the presidency, Buchanan rejected slavery as an indefensible evil but, like the majority of his party, refused to challenge the constitutionally established order.
Even before he became president, he supported the various compromises that made it possible for slavery to spread into the western territories acquired by the Lousiana Purchase and the Mexican War. (Particularly hurtful to the cause of restraining slavery's spread was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, for example, allowed settlers to determine the status of slavery in their proposed state constitutions.)
In his inaugural address, the 15th president tacitly encouraged the Supreme Court's forthcoming Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress had no power to keep slavery out of the territories.
More damaging to his name, though, was his weak acquiescence before the secessionist tide—an unwillingness to challenge those states that declared their intention to withdraw from the Union after Lincoln's election. Sitting on his hands as the situation spiraled out of control, Buchanan believed that the Constitution gave him no power to act against would-be seceders.
To his dying day, he felt that history would treat him favorably for having performed his constitutional duty. He was wrong.