Year: 1973
Type: article
Abstract: Consultant Psychiatrist, British Army of •the RhineNOT all that is written about drugs is based on solid fact or even on sound opinion.The following is a review of some of the generally accepted opinions on drugs of abuse today, seen from the viewpoint of an Army psychiatrist and generously mixed with personal opinion and prejudice.Undoubtedly, an epidemic of drug misuse is going on and there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the Army will escape it entirely, but we do not know how serious , it is because illicit drug taking is essentially a secret activity.It is difficult to know, even, how dangerous the known cases really are and what proportion of the patients are controlled users, even of opiates, never likely to show the dreaded physical and mental deterioration leading to an early death.We are facing a problem of unknown seriousness, due to ill-understood factors and demanding a solution by means of which we are largely ignorant.A drug is any chemical substance which, taken into the body, is capable of effecting some change.In this context, the definition can be narrowed; the change is in consciousness and leads to misuse of the drug.Almost any change will do and some drugs which are liable to produce decidedly unpleasant changes such as, for example, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), can still lead to dependency.This has been described by the W.H.O.Expert Committee on Drug Dependence 1968 as " a state, psychic and sometimes also physical, resulting from the interaction between a living organism and a drug, characterised by behavioural and other responses that always include a compulsion to take the drug on a continuous or periodic basis in order to experience its psychic effects, and sometimes to ,avoid the discomfort of its absence.Tolerance mayor may not be present."Not all dangerous drugs are regarded as such.Some are socially accepted with international prejudice in their favour.For example tobacco.Over 4 per cent of hospital beds in the.United Kingdom (UK.) are occupied by patients suffering from cigaretteinduced diseases (Ball 1970).The mounting death from carcinoma of the bronchus alone are approaching 30,000 per annum in the U.K. and are generally accepted now as being effectively due to cigarette smoking.Such a death rate from road accidents would produce enormous indignation and a thousandth of it from heroin would produce a furore.Yet advertising of tobacco has not even been banned by our Government or any other.Nobody can ignore these facts and yet argue convincingly with the adolescent pot-smoker who drives his horse and cart through the gap in our logic by refusing to accept condemnation of marijuana from a person with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.The aetiology of abuse is complex.Drugs taken repeatedly with pleasurable effects have a tendency to continued self-administration, each repetition providing reinforcement of the trend.Some drugs are particularly potent in this respect, especially if administered by certain routes, for instance, the intravenous administration of heroin and amphetamines considerably facilitates the development of habitual use.Availability is a primary factor and one which has been of importance in the Europeanepedimic of the past guest.Protected by copyright.
Author: T. B. Stephens
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1965762478