Facts About Drug Abuse

A person can get addicted to various kinds of drugs, foods and even certain fluids, but the level of addiction in these contexts differ. There are certain addictions, which can be detrimental in the long run and one of them is drug abuse. There are various facts about drug abuse that people are not aware of and these are vital for the health and general well being of the body. Basically drug abuse has a wide range of definitions and these are mostly related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect.

It has been seen that all of these definitions imply a negative judgment of the drug use in question and this can be compared with the term responsible drug use for alternative views also. Alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, methaqualone, and opium alkaloids are just some of the drugs most often associated with this term. Over the past few years it has been seen that the use of these drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm. However both of these factors are largely dependent on the local jurisdiction.

There are various other kinds of definitions of drug abuse and these falls into four main categories. These categories of drug abuse include public health definitions, mass communication and vernacular usage, medical definitions, and political and criminal justice definitions and thus on these basis the legalization of these drugs are also determined. Various researches and statistics reveal that an estimated 4.7% of the global population aged 15 to 64, which accounts to about 185 million people, is consuming these illicit drugs annually.

There are various countries which have legislation designed to criminalize some drug use but it has been usually seen that the legislative process is self-referential. Hence the defining abuse in terms of what is made illegal can vary and the legislation concerns lists of drugs specified by the legislation. Most of the drugs are often called illegal drugs but, in this reference a huge chunk of what was illegal is their unlicensed production, supply and also their possession. Hence these drugs are also called controlled drugs or controlled substances and are available via prescription.

Thus these factors also depend on the actual compound and the drug use may lead to health problems, social problems, physical dependence, or psychological addiction and various other related problems also. Thus it is vital to understand the various facts related to drug abuse so that you can easily avoid the drugs which may lead to some kind of addiction. The Drug abuse makes central nervous system produce changes in mood, levels of awareness or even in sensations and perceptions.

It has been seen that most of these drugs also alter systems other than the CNS and hence many of these are often thought of as being abused and there are various drugs which are more likely to lead to uncontrolled use than others. Thus it is vital to have an understanding of these facts to prevent the abuse of such drugs and also avail curative measures for the same.

• John Palsson
• 18/11/2008, 10:59 PM
• 0 Comments