© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Drug Use : An Overview

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. “Drug Use On The Rise” Who? What? When and where? How much? Why do any of these matter?

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Who Is Taking The Drug?  Age  Proximity to us  What they do for a living What Drug Are They Taking?  Obvious question but often over looked  Alcohol vs. heroin  Inhalants vs. alcohol

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. When And Where Are Drugs Being Used?  The situation in which the drug is taken makes a big difference.  A 1 st grade teacher drinking on Saturday night at home vs. a 1 st grade teacher drinking during class.  Even if a subculture accepts the use of an illegal drug, it will distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable situations.  A group might accept marijuana smoking at a party but not when you are taking the kids to the soccer game or right before a multi-million dollar deal meeting.

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Why A Person Takes Drugs?  Vicodin the doctor prescribed for pain vs. Vicodin for the way it makes you feel for pleasure  Drinking alcohol because you are out with friends vs. drinking alcohol alone in the morning to help get you out of bed

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. How A Drug Is Taken?  An amount of cocaine that comes from chewing the coca leaves vs. that much cocaine snorted will lead to very different responses  How the drug is taken can also depend on how fast the user becomes addicted, how fast the response comes and how long it lasts How Much Of A Drug Is Taken?  This is often the difference between normal use and abuse; the difference between life and death

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Four Principles Of Psychoactive Drugs  “Drugs” are not good or bad  Every drug has multiple effects  Both size and quality of the drug affect the effect of the drug  The effects of a drug depends on the person

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. History tells us that as long as humans have been around some have used, misused and abused some plants or substances.

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Four Pharmacological Revolution 1. Major communicable diseases under control – vaccines 2. Pharmacological revolution – antibiotics to treat illness of the body 3. Development of psychopharmacology drugs – treatment of mental illnesses 4. Development of oral contraception – drugs gave control over the body

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Cultural Change  After WWII substance abuse was not a major concern  Then concerns about alcohol came to the forefront  Then in the mid 1960s LSD became a household word  Then Nixon declared a “War on Drugs”, however there was still tolerance for drug use  Then in the 1980s less tolerance of differences including drugs  The 1990s were a continuation of the 80s  Then in 2000s medicinal marijuana and “rave” culture

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Extent Of Drug Use  Not possible to get accurate information on use  Not possible to get accurate information on how much is imported or sold  Even beer or prescription drug use can be off

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. How We Get Information  Survey questionnaires  Benefits  Drawbacks

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Trends In Drug Use  Annual High School Senior survey  Prevalence of reported use  Attitude data and risk  Who is reported, who is not

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Marijuana: Trends in perceived availability, perceived risk of regular use, and prevalence of use in the past 30 days for 12 th graders

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Lifetime Marijuana Use among Persons Ages 12-25, by group:

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. National Survey On Drug Use And Health  Face-to-face, computer-assisted interviews  68,000 individuals; carefully sampled households across the US  Broken down into different age groups  Results

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Trends in reported drug use within the past 30 days for young adults ages 18 to 25

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Finding such similar patterns in two different studies, using different sampling techniques adds confidence on the results.

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Correlates Of Drug Use  Age, gender, racial/ethnic grouping, education levels  SES- not a significant factor  Personality problems are poor predictors  Risk factors  Protective factors

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Limitations Of Correlation Studies  Does smoking marijuana cause the user to get lower grades? Or is it the kids who are getting low grades anyway who are more likely to smoke marijuana?

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Motives For Drug Use  We all do things that we know are not right; eating too much, driving too fast or drinking to much  Fads and cultural trends influence what drugs are used

© 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Influences on drug use.