Drug Abuse
Drug and substance abuse is one of the most serious dilemmas in the world today. One aspect of the issue is the growing number of teenage drug users and the increasing incidents of prescription drug abuse. According to the statistics of the National Institute on Drug Abuse prescription drugs misuse is far greater than the abuse of narcotics. Among teenagers alone, accepted cases of drug use increased from 27 to 30% in a year between 2001 and 2002. The actual number is also reported to have increased by one percent (The Evening Standard 2004) but prescription drug abuse is rated higher then narcotics abuse. As in 2010 prescription drugs intake stood at 2.4 million one third of which were users between 12 and 17 years of age (National Institute on Drug Abuse, n.d.).
The magnitude of the issue has lead to a plentitude of research and experimentation being done in this discipline. Howard Abadinsky refutes the belief that continued drug abuse is the product of a weak mind and resolution. He insists that addiction is more about the neurological side effects of drugs than will power of the consumer. The paper will look at different texts to examine the biological side of addiction and attempt to understand the power of their impact on the brain and gauge the strength of this impact in comparison to genetic, social and psychological factors.
Introduction
The NIDA defines drug addiction as a "chronic, relapsing brain disease" which is supposed to lead to obsessive and compulsive use of the drugs. Further the institute claims that the repetitive use of drugs brings about long lasting changes in the human brain's structure and its functioning. In short it can be said that addiction makes the brain malfunction which leads to other disruptive behavior on the part of the addict (National Institute on Drug Abuse, n.d). Abadinsky claims that unlike popular belief the reason for continued drug use is these chemical changes that make the impulse or the urge to use them almost uncontrollable. People take drugs to feel good, to alleviate pain and also to improve performance. NIDA explains that when drug use begins it gives the abuser great pleasure and his brain then compels him to seek out the same pleasure again and again. But after a while the user becomes so used to the feeling that accompanies drug us e that he or she don't fell or function normally without it. Similarly over indulgence in the use of pain killers lower the user's pain bearing capacity and thus they cannot function without it. When they reach an over saturation point and drugs fail to bring pleasure or relief the users may attempt to use drugs of higher potency.
The NIDA has conducted experiments which has lead to the conclusion that continuous drug misuse can impair a human beings self-control, thus making them the weak minded individuals that the world sees and despises. Scientists believe that also reveal that these poisonous items have prominent and long lasting impact on the brain's decision making and judgment section, its memory and learning capacity and the part which governs human behavior and actions ((National Institute on Drug Abuse, n.d).
Howard Abadinsky supports this thought process and says that the meaning of 'addiction' in Latin is to bind or tie down a person to something. He believes that drugs take away a person's freedom of thinking, seriously hampers their cognitive abilities and thus does not leave them capable of normal behavior and living. The people under the influence of these are so badly under their spell, or slaves to their desire for the substances, that they become rash and reckless. Such people become aggressive and don't care about social, religious or cultural norms especially when they come in their way of gaining pleasure or relief. This is because their brain keeps them focused on the feeling of that particular pleasure (Abadinsky, H 2008)
Analysis
Disease is "a pattern of responses by a living organism to some form of invasion by a foreign substance or injury, which causes an alteration of the organism's normal functioning. Disease can be further defined as an abnormal state in which the body is not capable of responding to or carrying on its normally required functions"(Sussmam, S. & Ames, S.L. 2001)
The definition proves that drug abuse is indeed a disease, a chronic, but not infectious disease. Early 1800s are characterized by social reforms that...
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