Drugs and Society

Drugs and Society

Comparison

An extensive study on the use of illicit drugs shows that marijuana is the most used drug in the world, although amphetamines such as ecstasy, are the major driver of dependence. The survey also found heroin as a leading cause of deaths, bringing the most serious health consequences worldwide.

Although marijuana is the narcotic of higher consumption in the world, it has a lower impact on health than other drugs, particularly because it is related to a lower dependency ratio: 13 million, against 17.2 million dependent on amphetamines and 15.5 million opiate (Ivsins et al, 2010).

Heroin is more addictive than cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines, second only to nicotine. The first doses leave a wellness unknown, deep and enduring, feeling increasingly fleeting time as it installs the tolerance caused by repetitive use.

In Europe, there are hundreds of thousands of marihuana consumers and in North America totaling over a million. Destroyed families and communities are the major users and hence contributes to the spread of AIDS, viral hepatitis and crime.

Historically, the treatment of heroin addiction followed two opposing strategies. Adopted around 1920, the British model advocated the prescription drug users to middle class who were willing to follow medical advice, method, which remained in force until the 1960s. The American model, instead, followed the Harrison Narcotics Act, enacted in 1914, which threatened a lawsuit to every doctor who prescribe the drug (Fendrich et al, 2012).

Antagonistic approaches as these had nothing to do with the pharmacological properties of neither heroin nor the search for evidence to find the most effective way to get rid of it. It only reflected the position of each company in relation to illicit drug use (Lundqvist et al, 2010).

This dilemma began in the 1960s and was solved thanks to a study conducted in New York, which proposed the use of methadone, a derivative of morphine, to treat users. The strategy was to replace the dependence on an illicit drug for another, produced by the pharmaceutical industry.

Again, the professional and political interests overlapped with scientific evidence-based rationales. Methadone had two merits: put dependent on contact with the health system and has been shown to reduce the risks of heroin abuse among those determined to change his life. About 15% to 25% of users enrolled in these programs, however, leave the monitor and return to injecting illicit drugs (Petrocelli et al, 2013).

Canadian researchers have just published a study in which 226 chronic heroin users (characterized by daily use for more than 5 years) who had had at least two failed attempts to methadone treatment, were divided into two groups: half received methadone again , the others received daily injections of diacetylmorphine, the active ingredient in heroin.

After 12 months, 46% of those taking methadone and only 12% of those who received diacetylmorphine had abandoned the study. The rates of return to heroin and engaging in other illegal activities were 52% and 32% respectively (Fendrich et al, 2012).

Among the 115 patients treated with diamorphine 11 episodes of seizure or overdose ...