Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions related to taking a Pschoactive drugs or performance enhancing drugs for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. Some of the most commonly abused drugs include alcohol,amphetamines, barbiturates, cocaine, opium alkaloids, and minor tranquilizers. Use of these drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm, both strongly depending on local jurisdictionOther definitions of drug abuse fall into four main categories: public health definitions, mass communication and vernacular usage, medical definitions, and political and criminal justice definitions.It can aslo lead to loss of memory,kidney and liver failure, and make a persons heart and lungs stop
HOW TO COMBAT
Approaches to managing drug abuse
In addition to being a major public health problem, some consider drug abuse to be a social problem with far-reaching implications. Stress, poverty, domestic and societal violence, and various diseases (i.e., injecting drug users as a source for HIV/AIDS) are sometimes thought to be spread by drug use. Studies have also shown that individuals dependent on illicit drugs experience higher rates of comorbid psychiatric syndromes
Harm reduction
One alternative involves replacing failed law enforcement policies with harm-reduction strategies, which focus on reducing the societal costs of drug abuse and other drug use. Techniques include education to avoid overdose, needle exchange programs to reduce the spread of blood borne disease, and opioid substitution therapy to reduce crime related to the procurement of drugs. This pragmatic approach is known as the harm reduction paradigm. Harm reduction also addresses special populations, such as drug-using parents, pregnant drug users and users with psychiatric comorbidity. The philosophy of harm reduction accepts that drug use is part of the community, but that it must be addressed as a public health issue rather than a criminal one
Harm-reduction measures are at odds with the prevailing framework of international drug control, which rests on law enforcement and the criminalization of behaviors related to illicit drug use. However, harm-reduction has had a notable impact and is slowly gaining popularity. In Brazil alone, a comprehensive harm-reduction and drug-access program successfully reduced AIDS mortality among injection drug users by 50%
Abstinence-Based
Abstinence-based approaches set as a goal complete abstinence from all addictive substances, including both licit and illicit, prescribed and unprescribed. While the harm-reduction approach has been demonstrated to work well with opioids, the abstinence-based approach is the medical community standard of care for sedative (including alcohol) dependence.
Medical treatment
Beyond the sociological issues, many drugs of abuse can lead to addiction, chemical dependency, or adverse health effects, such as lung cancer or emphysema from cigreete smoking.
Medical treatment therefore centers on two aspects: 1) breaking the addiction, 2) treating the health problems.
Most countries have health facilities that specialize in the treatment of drug abuse, although access may be limited to larger population centers and the social taboos regarding drug use may make those who need the medical treatment reluctant to take advantage of it. For example, it is estimated that only fifteen percent of injection drug abusers thought to be in need are receiving treatment.Patients may require acute and long-term maintenance treatment and relapse prevention, complemented by suitable rehabilitation.
Pharmacotherapy
The development of pharmacotherapies for drug dependency treatment are currently in progress. New immunotherapies that prevent drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, phencyclidine ,nicotine, and opiods from reaching the brain are in the early stages of testing as is ibogaine, an alkaloid found in the Tabernanthe of West Central Africa. Medications such as buprinorphine , which block the drugs active site in the brain are another new option for the treatment of opioid addiction. Depot forms of medications, which require only weekly or monthly dosing, are also under investigation.
Traditionally, new pharmacotherapies are quickly adopted in primary care settings, however, drugs for substance abuse treatment have faced many barriers. Naltreoxone, a drug originally marketed under the name "ReVia," and now marketed in intramuscular formulation as "Vivitrol" or in oral formulation as a generic, is a medication approved for the treatment of alcohol dependence. This drug has reached very few patients. This may be due to a number of factors, including resistance by Addiction medicines specialists and lack of resources.
Legal approaches
Related articles: prohibition(drugs), Aguments for and against drug prohibition
Most governments have designed legislation to criminalise certain types of drug use. These drugs are often called "illegal drugs" but generally what is illegal is their unlicensed production, distribution, and possession. These drugs are also called "controlled substances". Even for simple possession, legal punishment can be quite severe (including the death penalty in some countries). Laws vary across countries, and even within them, and have fluctuated widely throughout history.
Attempts by government-sponsored drug control policy to interdict drug supply and eliminate drug abuse have been largely unsuccessful. In spite of the huge efforts by the U.S., drug supply and purity has reached an all time high, with the vast majority of resources spent on interdiction and law enforcement instead of public health.In the united states, the number of nonviolent drug offenders in prison exceeds by 100,000 the total incarcerated population in the EU ,despite the fact that the EU has 100 million more citizens.
Despite drug legislation (and some might argue because of it), large, organized criminal drug cartels operate world-wide. Advocates of decriminalization argue that drug prohibition makes drug dealing a lucrative business, leading to much of the associated criminal activity.
In addition to being a major public health problem, some consider drug abuse to be a social problem with far-reaching implications. Stress, poverty, domestic and societal violence, and various diseases (i.e., injecting drug users as a source for HIV/AIDS) are sometimes thought to be spread by drug use. Studies have also shown that individuals dependent on illicit drugs experience higher rates of comorbid psychiatric syndromes
Harm reduction
One alternative involves replacing failed law enforcement policies with harm-reduction strategies, which focus on reducing the societal costs of drug abuse and other drug use. Techniques include education to avoid overdose, needle exchange programs to reduce the spread of blood borne disease, and opioid substitution therapy to reduce crime related to the procurement of drugs. This pragmatic approach is known as the harm reduction paradigm. Harm reduction also addresses special populations, such as drug-using parents, pregnant drug users and users with psychiatric comorbidity. The philosophy of harm reduction accepts that drug use is part of the community, but that it must be addressed as a public health issue rather than a criminal one
Harm-reduction measures are at odds with the prevailing framework of international drug control, which rests on law enforcement and the criminalization of behaviors related to illicit drug use. However, harm-reduction has had a notable impact and is slowly gaining popularity. In Brazil alone, a comprehensive harm-reduction and drug-access program successfully reduced AIDS mortality among injection drug users by 50%
Abstinence-Based
Abstinence-based approaches set as a goal complete abstinence from all addictive substances, including both licit and illicit, prescribed and unprescribed. While the harm-reduction approach has been demonstrated to work well with opioids, the abstinence-based approach is the medical community standard of care for sedative (including alcohol) dependence.
Medical treatment
Beyond the sociological issues, many drugs of abuse can lead to addiction, chemical dependency, or adverse health effects, such as lung cancer or emphysema from cigreete smoking.
Medical treatment therefore centers on two aspects: 1) breaking the addiction, 2) treating the health problems.
Most countries have health facilities that specialize in the treatment of drug abuse, although access may be limited to larger population centers and the social taboos regarding drug use may make those who need the medical treatment reluctant to take advantage of it. For example, it is estimated that only fifteen percent of injection drug abusers thought to be in need are receiving treatment.Patients may require acute and long-term maintenance treatment and relapse prevention, complemented by suitable rehabilitation.
Pharmacotherapy
The development of pharmacotherapies for drug dependency treatment are currently in progress. New immunotherapies that prevent drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, phencyclidine ,nicotine, and opiods from reaching the brain are in the early stages of testing as is ibogaine, an alkaloid found in the Tabernanthe of West Central Africa. Medications such as buprinorphine , which block the drugs active site in the brain are another new option for the treatment of opioid addiction. Depot forms of medications, which require only weekly or monthly dosing, are also under investigation.
Traditionally, new pharmacotherapies are quickly adopted in primary care settings, however, drugs for substance abuse treatment have faced many barriers. Naltreoxone, a drug originally marketed under the name "ReVia," and now marketed in intramuscular formulation as "Vivitrol" or in oral formulation as a generic, is a medication approved for the treatment of alcohol dependence. This drug has reached very few patients. This may be due to a number of factors, including resistance by Addiction medicines specialists and lack of resources.
Legal approaches
Related articles: prohibition(drugs), Aguments for and against drug prohibition
Most governments have designed legislation to criminalise certain types of drug use. These drugs are often called "illegal drugs" but generally what is illegal is their unlicensed production, distribution, and possession. These drugs are also called "controlled substances". Even for simple possession, legal punishment can be quite severe (including the death penalty in some countries). Laws vary across countries, and even within them, and have fluctuated widely throughout history.
Attempts by government-sponsored drug control policy to interdict drug supply and eliminate drug abuse have been largely unsuccessful. In spite of the huge efforts by the U.S., drug supply and purity has reached an all time high, with the vast majority of resources spent on interdiction and law enforcement instead of public health.In the united states, the number of nonviolent drug offenders in prison exceeds by 100,000 the total incarcerated population in the EU ,despite the fact that the EU has 100 million more citizens.
Despite drug legislation (and some might argue because of it), large, organized criminal drug cartels operate world-wide. Advocates of decriminalization argue that drug prohibition makes drug dealing a lucrative business, leading to much of the associated criminal activity.
courtsey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_abuse
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