EFFECTS OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS ON THE SOCIETY AT LARGE
Psychoactive drugs, also called psychotropic drugs, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as, “a substance that, when ingested affects mental processes, such as affect and cognition”. Psychoactive drugs have positive and negative impacts on the health of the person and society at large. It is important to make a distinction between legal and illegal drugs. Legal drugs are basically formulated for use in the treatment of medical and psychological symptoms and diseases. They are used as anesthesia, pain control, and psychiatric medication. Drugs are also used by the military as a psychological warfare. Illegal drugs are prohibited by law. These are drugs that are formulated and illegally distributed for recreational purposes. Sometimes these drugs are used for spiritual rituals. (Wikipedia, n.d.)
Positive Effects of Legal Psychoactive Drugs
Legal drugs are those that are allowed by law usually for the use in the medical and psychiatric profession. Psychoactive drugs are prescribed by medical professionals for patients with medical and psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, psychosis, and mania. Drugs that are prescribed for patients with psychological problems are classified as benzodiazepines, phenothiazines, tricyclic antidepressant, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, beta blockers and others such as lithium and venlafaxine. (Project Inform, 1995) These drugs are formulated with the goal of improving physical and mental health, reducing mortality caused by ill-health, and ultimately increasing the lifespan of humanity. These drugs ultimately contribute to the larger society as it increases the number of economically productive population.
Negative Effects of Psychoactive Drugs
Illegal drugs are usually the types of drugs that are abused by users and which usually lead to drug dependence. Psychoactive drugs if used and abused for pleasure and recreational purposes have a detrimental effect to the psychological, mental and physical health of a patient. Drugs are categorized into three major groups according to their pharmacological effects. These are the stimulants, depressants and hallucinogens (Wikipedia, n.d.).
Drug dependence if untreated at the early stages can lead to permanent physical and mental damage. Drug intoxication impairs the normal physical and mental functioning of a user. This usually ends into violence, injury, accident, deaths, drug-related crimes such as rape, murder and theft, and possible contraction of HIV/AIDS through the sharing of needles (GreenFacts, 2006). Malnutrition is also likely effect of drug dependence. Among pregnant users, fetal and neurological damage on children is expected. The psychological impacts, depending on the type of drug used include depression, impaired thinking, and at its worst, psychosis. (Health Officer’s Council of British Columbia, 2005).
Economic Effects of Psychoactive Drugs
The campaign against illegal drugs is a major concern among countries with a rising incidence of drug abuse and drug-abuse-related crimes. The rise in the rate of drug dependence leaves a serious economic dent on the country concerned. Drug use reduces the number of productive working age population. The cost of drug-related crimes is a burden on the tax-paying population. The cost of rehabilitation is not only carried by the families but the economy as well.
Drug is traded across the world through the black market. It is a very lucrative business that impacts on the political and economic stability of affected countries. (Health Officer’s Council of British Columbia, 2005). In some countries, the revenues from the black-market drug trade are used to channel funds to political parties or patrons who will then become the protectors of the international syndicate. Narco-politics is also alleged to have been funding terrorist activities in some parts of the world. The impact of illicit psychoactive drugs is profound and deleterious politically and economically and also environmentally as a large area of forests are cleared to give way to the illegal plantations where drugs are manufactured from (UNDP, 1995).
Social Effects of Psychoactive Drugs
Drug dependence if unabated leaves a number of serious social consequences. such as arrest and incarceration, loss of important relationships such as the spouse and family, inability to concentrate on schoolwork , neglect of work, dropping out of school and work in its entirety, legal problems due to litigations caused by the use of illegal drugs, financial problems, and poverty and broken homes. (Anonymous, 2004) The community usually carries the burden of the treatment of drug-dependents and protection of the other part of the population that is threatened by the increase of drug-dependents and drug-related crime and violence. Drugs usually reduce community cohesion in as much as a family of a drug-dependent is also broken.
REFERENCES
Anonymous, 2004. Drugs and their Effects. [online] Available at:< http://health.ninemsn.com.au/family/familyhealth/689830/drugs-and-their-effects> [Accessed 3 June 2011].
GreenFacts, 2006. Scientific Facts on Psychoactive Drugs. Summarized from WHO document 2004. [online] Available at:< http://www.greenfacts.org/en/psychoactive-drugs/index.htm> [Accessed 3 June 2011].
Health Officer’s Council of British Columbia, 2005. A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada. [online] Available at:< http://www.keepingthedooropen.com/Portals/0/hoc_paper_media_backgrounder.pdf> [Accessed 3 June 2011].
Project Inform, 1995. Psychoactive Drugs. [online] Available at:< http://www.thebody.com/content/art4989.html> [Accessed 2 June 2011].
UNDCP, 1995. The Social Impact of Drug Abuse. [online] Available at:< http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1995-03-01_1.pdf> [Accessed 3 June 2011].
Wikipedia, n.d. Psychoactive Drug. [online] Available at:< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug> [Accessed 3 June 2011].
World Health Organization n.d. Lexicon of Alcohol and Drug Terms Produced by the World Health Organization. [online] Available at:< http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/terminology/who_lexicon/en/> [Accessed 3 June 2011]
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