• Pages

  • Calendar

    September 2010
    M T W T F S S
    « Aug    
     12345
    6789101112
    13141516171819
    20212223242526
    27282930  

  • Tag Cloud

Drug Abuse: Warning Signs of Drug Abuse

May 2nd, 2010 -- Posted in Drug Abuse | No Comments »

Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. Some of the most commonly abused drugs include alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, methaqualone, and opium alkaloids.

Drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, alter gene expression and brain circuitry. Once drug abuse crosses into addiction, the compulsive drug craving, seeking and use occurs. Our featured publications offer a variety of cultural, social, and scientific views on drug abuse.

The use of chemicals to alter the way we feel and see things is one of the oldest activities of the human race. But a person’s use of a drug such as tobacco, alcohol, cannabis or heroin can become uncontrolled, or start to control them. Even when the use of drugs leads to serious physical and mental problems, the person using may still not want to stop. If they do decide to give up, they may then find it’s much harder.

This is a preview of Drug Abuse: Warning Signs of Drug Abuse. Read the full post (564 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Marijuana and Alcohol

January 19th, 2010 -- Posted in Drug Abuse | No Comments »

Four levels of drug use are easily identifiable: non-drug use, drug use, drug abuse, and drug dependency.

Non-drug users do not use drugs whatsoever. Drug users use drugs from time to time, typically in the company of others during recreational time. Drug abusers use drugs more readily, at times when sobriety is called for and in such a manner that other life functions or roles are either put at risk or are already compromised. Drug dependent persons use drugs very regularly to the point where there is a physiological dependency. Given physiological dependency, abrupt cessation of the drug results in physical symptoms ranging from agitation to depression to physical pain to death.

Many people regard marijuana and alcohol as innocuous substances when used recreationally from time to time. That is arguable. At the very least, no one became a drug abuser without first becoming a drug user.

This is a preview of Marijuana and Alcohol. Read the full post (607 words, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)