According to a report put out by the British Police Foundation in March 2000, cannabis has been shown to produce less harmful effects than its other legal counterparts such as alcohol and tobacco. This kind of information calls into sharper focus the question on the minds of many as to why such a plant that is not only less harmful than legal drugs but has significant health benefits has remained illegal. People all over the world, continue to be tendered prescription medication, which in many cases further complicate health issues with its myriad of side effects. In fact, statistics have shown that approximately 100,000 people around the world die as a result of prescription drugs annually (Smith, 2012). On the contrary, according to Smith (2012) there has, in 10,000 years only 1 death that has been blamed on cannabis use.
The miracle medication was intended for cancer patients whose pain level was not controlled with regular opioid medications ("The Promotion and Marketing of Oxycontin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy). Oxycontin was a wonder drug for pain, beating out Morphine sulfate. Drug companies were encouraged to market the drug to doctors throughout the nation by offering large bonuses to each drug representative for the amount of doctors who would sign up ("The Promotion and Marketing of Oxycontin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy”) and this is how the plague of the nation started. In the United States the overdose deaths have gone up 300% since 1999 in just the sales of prescription Oxycontin. In the 2008 the drug Oxycontin had a relationship to over 14,800 overdose deaths, this account for more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined (“The Promotion and Marketing of Oxycontin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy”).
Many Americans still oppose methadone treatments even though there is a strong net positive impact. There is a cost-savings in comparison to incarceration and a reduction in crime and STDs associated with intravenous drug use. Methadone is horribly unhealthy, but it serves as a safer substitute to help the addict withdraw from opiates. Also, methadone has a longer lasting effect which allows patients to take only one dose a day (around $15 a day) without feeling intoxicated if the dosage is prescribed reasonably. For those reasons, methadone users can generally maintain a more productive work life than heroin addicts who feel the need to use multiple times a day.
This income is tax-free and requires little to no labor efforts whatsoever. Those involved in this lucrative trade are taking somewhat of a risk, but because dealing drugs is so common in our society the chances of getting caught aren’t as high as expected. Drug trafficking alone serves for about 40 percent of all organized crime activity with this number increasing everyday as drugs become more and more popular. With the economy being so bad most find it easy to turn to selling drugs as an acceptable mean of income. Although drugs are used in an illegal aspect for the most part, there are accounts of medical research to prove the positive effects on some patients with long-term diseas... ... middle of paper ... ...f actual reality.
The biggest concern with Isoniazid was the development of central nervous system disorders, which was mainly peripheral neuropathy, in 12 patients. However this isn’t a large cause for concern as the study was published in 1978 and now in treatment there are drugs available to take in combination with isoniazid to prevent peripheral neuropathy. Although Isoniazid is safe it is never taken alone. It is taken in combination with Rifampicin, and out of the 25 patients developing hepatitis the majority of them (15) were due to rifampicin31. This is a larger percentage of 1.5%, however the value is not larger to deem Rifampicin unsafe.
While it is true that the War on Drugs as a policy is fundamentally broken, there is currently a trend towards new types of policies which could offer more effective solutions. The War on Drugs has created more problems than it has solved. While effectively filling our prisons over capacity, it does nothing to address the source of the problem leaving those incarcerated with the threat of going back soon after release. From 1980 to 1996, incarceration rates in America grew by 200 percent. The reasons for this appear to be dominated by drug offenses, which grew by ten times during this time frame.
Among non-elderly adults, those between ages 15-54, there has been an increase in antidepressant use from 1990-1992 levels of 2.2%, to 2001-2003 levels of 10.1% (9). Youth under 19 years old saw the smallest increase in antidepressant use, up from 1.3% in 1997 to 1.8% in 2002 (10). The shift toward pharmacological treatments increased even faster towards the end of the 1990s. The percentage of the US population that was on at least 1 psychotropic medication increased 5.9% in 1996 to 8.1% in 2001 (5). It is important to distinguish psychotropic medication from antidepressant medication.
For hundreds of years, cigarettes have been a popular legal drug within the United States. Only through legalization and education has the popularity and the use of cigarettes declined within the past ten years. Physically, the actual consequences of using illicit drugs is much less than of using drugs like alcohol or cigarettes and the consequences will be diminished. Illicit drugs can and will be made safer than they are in the present system. In making comparisons, the best is to look at how countries are functioning that have less enforcement on drugs and what the statistics were after drugs were decriminalized.
The article states that ketamine has shown to be able to increase mood levels with a single dose and effects lasting up to 10 days. Due to this Laurance sanctions ketamine’s potential use as a treatment for depression, mentioning that a third of patients with depression are not improving from current treatments available for depressio... ... middle of paper ... ...ne’s safety and use could be further researched as a potential treatment for depression. In summary, Laurence’s article sanctioning ketamine as a cure for depression is an interesting and well-written article, however, it could give people the wrong idea about ketamine. There is a rapidly increasing interest in the discovery of drugs targeting glutamate neurotransmitter in the brain, as a hope to rapidly treat treatment-resistant patients (Duman & Ronald, 2013). While the mentioned studies in the article and this essay have given insight into ketamine’s antidepressant effects, this is still something that needs to be researched further as a lot of unresolved problems are still around with ketamine.
Parents should not have to be fearful of such horrific side effects when giving their child medication. There is a yearly increase in children, and adults being diagnosed with ADHD. “A new study from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) examining changes in overall pediatric drug use from 2002-2010 found a 46% increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication use, setting the stage for further analyses of all pediatric medications, according to FDA researchers” (Brown University, 2012). Some of the risk factors of taking stimulants are heart complications, hallucinations, and suicidal thoughts. Suicidal acts were far less common than suicidal ideation.