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Drugs and health
Published in Sally Robinson, Priorities for Health Promotion and Public Health, 2021
Psychoactive drugs, also known as psychotropic substances, affect the central nervous system, including the brain, and cause changes in thinking, feelings, perceptions, behaviour and consciousness. They may be prescribed for a therapeutic purpose or be used for recreational reasons. They often create rewarding sensations such as relaxation or heightened alertness, which is one reason why some people may take these drugs to the point of dependency.
Targeting the Nervous System
Published in Nathan Keighley, Miraculous Medicines and the Chemistry of Drug Design, 2020
Targeting the nervous system can be a chancy business; medicinal chemist must carefully design drugs so that side effects are minimal, but create compounds with enough potency to be therapeutically useful. Due to the subtleties of the cholinergic and adrenergic receptors, greater attention is needed in understanding structure-activity relationships because active compounds will all have similar molecular structures, and small alterations to the structure may have dramatic consequences regarding activity. The reward for creating these drugs is substantial because disorders of the nervous system can be very problematic for patients. Unfortunately, the effects of psychoactive drugs can be desirable recreationally and this can lead to the abuse of certain compounds.
Historical Review
Published in Gary M. Matoren, The Clinical Research Process in the Pharmaceutical Industry, 2020
Donald D. Vogt, Michael Montagne
In the 1970s, social pharmacology began to describe a number of social factors which are important in drug-taking behaviors and experiences, many of which had been ignored to that time [19]. Prior to the experimentalistic approach developed in this century, all that physicians and scientists knew about the action of drugs was obtained from direct observation of their patients and subjects who had taken them for some purpose. It has been noted that what medical science knew of most psychoactive drugs, such as opium, cannabis, cocaine, ether, and chloroform, resulted from addicts' and other users' accounts of their addictions and drug-taking experiences [20]. However, with the advent of the currently favored sociotechnological approach, scientists and clinicians moved away from such observational data and began to perform experiments on subjects in laboratory settings. What has resulted is a dichotomy in descriptions of effects for many drugs between drug taker and researcher. This difference in approach may be one reason why pharmacology has been unable to explain many types of drug-taking experiences and the placebo phenomenon. In many instances, especially with regard to social and nonmedical drug taking, users' descriptions vary with the normative pharmacological textbook account. The users hold science and the medical descriptions in disdain and continue to experience the effects that they want to. This difference in user versus researcher descriptions of specific drug effects may also account, in part, for the continued success of many drugs used in self-medication.
Evaluation of substance use in Izmir during the COVID-19 pandemic
Published in Journal of Substance Use, 2022
Melike Aydoğdu, Rukiye Aslan, Özge Can, Yusuf Ali Altunci, Serap Annette Akgür
Psychoactive drug use is a serious health problem with psychosocial and legal aspects, and the use of these substances is increasingly common. According to the 2019 Drug Report of the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), approximately 96 million people or 29% of the adult population (15–64 age range) in the European Union were estimated to have used illegal substances at least once in their lifetime (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2019). Similarly, in the EMCDDA Turkey Report, 3.1% (1338 people) reported that they used substances at least once in their lifetime. In a study conducted in 2017 on the use of illicit substances among the general adult population, cannabis was the most common illicit substance used by adults aged 15–64, followed by 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) and cocaine (European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction [EMCDDA], 2019).
Common systemic medications that every optometrist should know
Published in Clinical and Experimental Optometry, 2022
Mental illness describes a wide spectrum of mental health and behavioural disorders varying in severity. The 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Well-being showed that approximately 45% of Australian adults would experience mental illness at some point in their lives. The most common mental illness diagnoses are depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders.52 Tools that lead to wellbeing include therapy, medication, counselling, social support, and education. While mental illness may be treated by psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, advanced practice nurses, and social workers, the only provider allowed to prescribe medications are psychiatrists. The pathogenesis of mental illness is a complex combination of genetic and environmental factors. Psychiatrists and medical doctors often prescribe psychoactive drugs for the short or long-term treatment of mental illness symptoms due to their effectiveness. Psychoactive drugs work to alter brain connections to temporarily change mood, behaviour, and perception. These modifications to the central nervous system may have adverse effects on the eye and visual system.
Beyond ketamine: narratives of risk among young psychoactive drug users in Hong Kong
Published in Journal of Substance Use, 2021
The ‘classic’ symbolic boundary between ‘hard’ drug (i.e. heroin) and ‘soft’ drugs (i.e. psychoactive drugs) is also frequently mentioned by our respondents. Among all the distinctions between heroin and psychoactive drugs made by our respondents, almost the entire sample shared the perceived high level of addictiveness as the major reason making them stand firm against heroin. Most respondents, like the one below, perceived the addictiveness of heroin as very high while the respective risk of taking psychoactive drugs is much less serious and even controllable: The life of an heroin user is just too miserable, some of them even had to have their legs chopped off … but, you see, ice or ketamine don’t have such problems … even for ketamine, I am fully aware of the side effects, but one needs to take tons of it to be addicted. (109, 22-year-old female)