1. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Chapter 2 Drug Use As A Social Problem

2. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Costs Of Drug Use To Society Cost of maintaining habit Cost of treating patients Fetal alcohol syndrome Cost of criminal behavior Broken home, illness, shorter lives, etc. Drugs in the workplace Others? Emergency room visits

3. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. The Big Change  What made the government change from a laissez-faire attitude to one of control?  Toxicity  Dependence  Crime

4. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Potency vs. Toxicity Potency: the amount of drug necessary to cause an effect Toxicity: the capacity of a drug to do damage or cause adverse effects in the body

5. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Toxicity What makes a drug toxic? Amount used How it is used What the user did while on the drug

6. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Examples of Drug-Induced Toxicity  Acute  Behavioral – “intoxication” that impairs the user’s actions and increase the danger to themselves or others  Physiological – overdose that causes the user to stop breathing or for their heart to stop

7. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Examples of Drug-Induced Toxicity  Chronic  Social problems  Personality changing  Effects on friends and family  Change of lifestyle  Health problems  Heart disease  Lung cancer  Liver danger  Other health effects

8. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Drug Abuse Warning Network  A system for reporting incidences of lethal and non-lethal drug related emergency in some US metropolitan hospitals  DAWN included improper use of prescription or over-the-counter drugs and the use of any other substance for psychic effect, dependence or suicide

9. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Drug Abuse Warning Network  What it tells us about how dangerous a drug is?  What it does not tell us about how dangerous a drug is?

10. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Blood Borne Diseases  Specific toxicity for inject drugs  AIDS, HIV and Hepatitis B and C  Why do the blood borne diseases spread so rapidly with these drug users?

11. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Substance Dependence  What does an addict look like?  What do they take? Alcohol, cigarettes, illicit drugs, food, or computer time  How much time do they spend with their vice?  How much do they take?  What makes you decide the rules?

12. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Substance Dependence  Three Basic Processes  Tolerance  Physical dependence  Psychological dependence

13. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Tolerance  Diminished affect on the body after repeated use of the same drug  Can prevail by increasing the amount of the drug

14. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Physical Dependence  Physical dependence is the body’s need to constantly have the drug or drugs  Tolerance typically paves the way to physical dependence  With physical dependence when the drug use is stopped promptly withdrawal effect can happen  From a headache to death - withdrawal effects are different in different users as well as with different drugs

15. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Psychological Dependence  Psychological dependence is the mental inability to stop using the drug or drugs  Psychological dependence can be seen in behavior and by the amount of time and effort the person spends seeking the drug

16. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Changing Views of Dependence  The medical model looked to treat the withdrawal symptoms, often associated with physical dependence  The positive reinforcement model explained that the consequence of the drug over the mind affected dependence  The user did not have to have withdrawal symptoms to be addicted

17. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Substance Abuse and Dependence: DSM-IVTR  Substance abuse is considered maladaptive and it is carefully separated from substance dependence, the essential feature of which is continued use despite significant substance-related problems known to user.

18. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Drugs are not evil They can not do anything They can not have power Drugs are just objects that have effects on our body. Even our “War on Drugs” shows the perception that drugs are so evil that we have to wage a war on them.

19. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Dependence as Biological  Biochemical or physiological action in the brain  Still no way to scan the brain and know if the person had developed dependence  Genetic physiological or biochemical markers have been looked for as well but none have proven reliable

20. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Personality  No way to know if the drug or the drug use changed the personality  Many other factors play a part in someone’s personality

21. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Dependence is a Disease  Alcoholics Anonymous is based on this idea and its founders feel that it should be treated this way  Others argue that there are no tests that can de done to diagnose alcoholism  There are ways to test and treat the effects but not the disease itself

22. © 2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved. Drugs and Crime  Do drugs turn the person into the criminal type?  Do people under the influence of a drug commit crime?  Examples are that more than half the murders in our nation in 2000 were associated with alcohol, as were two-thirds of all domestic violence  Drug use is a crime.  If someone is willing to commit one crime they might be more willing to do other crimes