Themes Of Psychoactive Drugs

1266 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Research on the history of drugs

A drug is considered psychoactive if it has an effect on the central nervous system which alters a person’s thought and behavior (Cole & Cole, 1963). Humans have had a long-running affair with psychoactive substances and have responded to the demand for them with both altruism and opportunism. While much of pharmaceutical industry genuinely seeks and works for the betterment of mankind, it is also driven and influenced by capitalism and power struggles. This has been the case since man first discovered that substances can be refined, combined and consumed to provide physical and mental relief from suffering. The continuous improvements in drug potencies and in the processes for manufacturing and distributing them, ingenious marketing campaigns, and the consideration of consumers’ favored methods of intake all play roles in how a drug is embraced by society. Historical Themes of Psychoactive Drugs Inaba and Cohen (2007, 2011) have assimilated these factors into five interactive …show more content…

This might depend on whether the drug in question is a product of legal research to produce a legitimate medicine or if it is the product of a bathtub chemist in a black market where consumers simply will not buy drugs that do not produce the desired effect. The industry, with all the corporate power of research facilities and marketing campaigns behind it, can often be ambiguous where cause and effect are concerned. It has been accused of fabricating “disorders” that can be treated by expensive drugs discovered during research and offering incentives for clinicians to diagnose and prescribe accordingly. Hara refers to this difference in perspectives as the “technical and social determinist models” and suggests that the truth lies somewhere between the two (2003, pp. 8-10). One thing is clear, though, according to

Show More
Related

  • Dr. John Abramson Overdosed America Summary

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dr. John Abramson’s book Overdosed America debunks the myths about the excellence of American medicine. Abramson backs up this claim by closely examining research about medicine, closely examining the unpublished details submitted by drug manufacturers to the FDA, and discovering that the unpublished data does not coincide with the claims made about the safety and effectiveness of commonly used medicines. Abramsons purpose is to point out the flaws of the pharmaceutical industry in order to warn the readers about the credibility of the drugs they are buying. Given the critical yet technical language of the book, Abramson is writing to an audience that may include academic physicians as well as those who want to learn about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.

    Read More

  • HIstory of Cocaine

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    Credibility material: Its intake results in adverse medical conditions that are further exalted by its addiction properties that ensure a continued intake of the substance. The drug can be abused through multiple means and is medically recorded to produce short-term joy, energy , and other effects such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. This ultimately results in numerous psychiatric and social problems; factors that played a major role in its illegalization after multiple and widespread cases of its effects were reported in the country during the 1900s. In addition to this, the drug results in immediate euphoric effect, a property which the National Institute of Drug Abuse (2010) attributes to be the root cause for its increased po...

    Read More

  • Drug Patents

    1902 Words  | 4 Pages

    Why do consumers purchase specific drugs for various ailments, sicknesses or diseases they might have? Why do physicians prescribe certain drugs over competitive drugs that may be available to the public? Why is it that most of us can easily name specific drugs that fit the many ailments of today’s society? On the surface the answer might be as simple as good TV advertising or radio commercials or even internet adds. The truth of matter is the major pharmaceutical manufacturers own the patents on these drugs and this gives them all of the marketing budget and muscle they need to promote the drug and control the pricing. The incentives for larger pharmaceutical companies are very enticing and as a result, they don’t mind spending the time in clinical trials and patent courts to get their drugs approved. Some will even get patents on the process by which the drug is manufactured, ensuring that no competitor can steal the drug or the process. This protects their large financial investment and nearly guarantees a large return for their investors. Many consumer rights groups claim this is nothing more than legalizing monopolies for the biggest manufacturers.

    Read More

  • Drug Abuse in Canada

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    Drug use and abuse is as old as mankind itself. Human beings have always had a desire to eat or drink substances that make them feel relaxed, stimulated, or euphoric. Wine was used at least from the time of the early Egyptians; narcotics from 4000 B.C.; and medicinal use of marijuana has been dated to 2737 B.C. in China. But it was not until the nineteenth century that the active substances in drugs were extracted. There was a time in history when some of these newly discovered substances, such as morphine, laudanum, cocaine, were completely unregulated and prescribed freely by physicians for a wide variety of ailments.

    Read More

  • Against the War On Drugs in America

    3560 Words  | 8 Pages

    The legal prohibition on most psychoactive drugs has been in place in this country for the better part of a century. This policy of prohibition, however, has never been based on reason or careful consideration, but on the paranoia of a small segment of society and the indifferent willingness of the majority to accept this vocal minority’s claims without question. Outlawing any use of a particular drug is a violation of the basic freedom of individuals to act as they please in their private lives. However, even if one does not accept this belief, an objective analysis of the United States’ history of prohibition clearly shows that attempts to enforce this policy have done far more harm than good, and have utterly failed to control behavior in the intended manner.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Alcoholics Anonymous

    1641 Words  | 4 Pages

    A “drug-free society” has never existed, and probably will never exist, regardless of the many drug laws in place. Over the past 100 years, the government has made numerous efforts to control access to certain drugs that are too dangerous or too likely to produce dependence. Many refer to the development of drug laws as a “war on drugs,” because of the vast growth of expenditures and wide range of drugs now controlled. The concept of a “war on drugs” reflects the perspective that some drugs are evil and war must be conducted against the substances

    Read More

  • Functionalist and Interactionalist Perspective on Illegal Drugs

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    The war on drugs in our culture is a continuous action that is swiftly lessening our society. This has been going on for roughly 10-15 years and has yet to slow down in any way. Drugs continue to be a problem for the obvious reason that certain people abuse them in a way that can lead to ultimate harm on such a person. These drugs do not just consist of street drugs (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy), but prescription medications as well. Although there are some instances where drugs are being used by subjects excessively, there has been medical research to prove that some of these drugs have made a successful impact on certain disorders and diseases.

    Read More

  • Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

    1205 Words  | 3 Pages

    CDER, by current law, all new drugs need proof that they are effective and safe before they can

    Read More

  • Brave new world essay

    1119 Words  | 3 Pages

    Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).

    Read More

  • Drugs in American Society, by Erich Goode

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    Drug in the American Society is a book written by Eric Goode. This book, as the title indicates, is about drugs in the American Society. It is especially about the misuse of most drugs, licit or illicit, such us alcohol, marijuana and more. The author wrote this book to give an explanation of the use of different drugs. He wrote a first edition and decided to write this second edition due to critic and also as he mentioned in the preface “there are several reason for these changes. First, the reality of the drug scene has changed substantially in the past dozen or so years. Second much more information has been accumulated about drug use. And third, I’m not the same person I was in 1972.”(vii). The main idea of this book is to inform readers about drugs and their reality. In the book, Goode argued that the effect of a drug is dependent on the societal context in which it is taken. Thus, in one society a particular drug may be a depressant, and in another it may be a stimulant.

    Read More

  • Should Drugs Be Decriminalized?

    1650 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wolf, M. (2011, June 4). We should declare an end to our disastrous war on drugs. Financial Times. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/870200965?accountid=14473

    Read More

  • Decriminalization Of Drugs Research Paper

    1324 Words  | 3 Pages

    Schuster voices in the journal article, “problems posed by currently available substances will pale in significance to the chemicals…that will shortly be upon us.” Altering an individual’s perception, compounded with paranoia and aggression, profoundly changes the success of our relationships with the world. Advances in drug policy can safeguard society against future issues, but legalization holds no societal

    Read More

  • Amphetamines Research Paper

    2144 Words  | 5 Pages

    Similarly, athletes welcomed the drugs as performance- enhancing panaceas in postwar years. Around 1950, family doctors embraced amphetamines as psychiatric medications for their distressed patients, cemeting the notion that depression was both commonplace and easily treatable. Moreover, amphetamines were hailed as breakthrough in weight loss and enjoyed enormous success as diet pills, helping to transform obesity into the mencing through preventible and treatable epidemic that medicine views it as today (Rasmussen 3). Today, the use of amphetamines for medical assistance is very common, and as I mentioned before, it aids in many disorders, however, some people don’t neccesarily need the drug for medical purposes. People may simply take it instead as a method of getting high, this would now be considered illegal amphetamines which are not prescribed for medical treatment rather sold in labs for pleasure. People who purchase illegal amphetamines feel the need to use them in order to feel relaxed or to forget about their problems for a while and just be happy. Users experience the “thrill” of a rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, blood vessel constriction and sweating. The illegal amphetamines, molly, for example makes the user feel as if they can be open, accepting, unafraid and connected to the people around them. The drug effects are stimulated by visuals, sounds, smells, and touch which bring pleasure to the consumer, and is the reason so many people are attracted to the drug (drugpolicy.org). Feelings of relaxation and clarity are reported. People using molly experience heightened sensations and want to intensify these feelings by dancing, talking and touching. Whether they are used legally or illegally they have some negative side effects, both long term or short

    Read More

  • Effects Of Ecstasy

    1808 Words  | 4 Pages

    When a person becomes addicted to ecstasy, their families and friends also suffer with them as they see someone they love go through an addiction. There is even the possibility that the family members themselves have to take a financial security hit in the case of a parent or caretaker spending all of their money on the drugs. For the rest of society outside of a person’s immediate circle, most of the damage done is financial. Investigations, arrests, imprisonment, and other parts of the criminal justice aspect of ecstasy use often use taxpayer money to fund operations. Because of this, every person in America is somehow affected by ecstasy, even if they themselves are not directly using the drug. However, before the many problems that ecstasy causes can be fully understood, we must take a look back at the drug’s history and how our society reached the point of ecstasy becoming an issue in the first

    Read More

  • Drugs in Our Society

    1265 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the use of drugs being such a controversial issue in today’s society we felt as a group it was important to further explore this issue. As we possess a high interest in how drugs affect a number of social groups. These groups of course range from young teens to high-class older individuals who will have different reasons and different acceptable standards of behaviour.

    Read More

More about Themes Of Psychoactive Drugs

Open Document