Toxic Fifty
A non-profit passion project created to fight the ongoing drug epidemic. Our goal is to be a central place for high-quality, responsible information about drugs and poisons.
Why “Toxic Fifty”?
Toxic Fifty was named after LD50, a historic toxicity metric. LD50 is the dose that kills 50% of a test population. We use a order-of-magnitude approach, in order for us to focus both scale and safety.
Scale Explorer
A zoomable map of substances by order-of-magnitude mass, inspired by the Scale of the Universe
Open ScaleTop Lists
Most potent substances by mass, and substances most involved in overdoses. Framed with context and sources.
View ListsContext & Sources
Educational framing is essential. We emphasize safety, cite sources, and avoid publishing precise “human lethal doses.”
Support the MissionSafety & Overview
This site is for education. We've purposefully avoided precise human lethality values. Mortality data is shown only for years with reliable, citable data. Nothing here is medical advice.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the U.S. or visit the official 988 website.