The United Nations estimates there are over 200 million people who abuse drugs. There are over 21 million victims around the world who abuse cocaine and heroin, most of them are without any real opportunity for cure. And this number is part of a larger group of people who have taken psychoactive drugs for curative, religious and recreational purposes.
People take drugs to change the way they feel, think, or behave. These kinds of substances are called psychoactive and cover alcohol and tobacco as well as natural and manufactured drugs. In the past, most of the drugs that were used were made from plants, such as the coca bush for cocaine, opium poppies for heroin and cannabis for hashish or marijuana. More recently, drugs such as ecstasy or LSD are produced by synthesizing various chemicals.
Drug abuse affects most countries in the world, both rich and poor. The problem now crosses national, ethnic, religious and gender lines. Addicts range from the homeless, to white-collar professionals, college students to rural farmers, street children to suburban teenagers.
What kind of drugs are being abused?
Drugs of abuse fall into three categories:
Depressants (e.g. heroin, barbiturates)
Depressants are sedatives which act on the nervous system. Artificial relaxation and relief from anxiety and mental stress tend to produce psychological dependence and withdrawal from heavy use is severe.
Stimulants (e.g. cocaine, crack, amphetamines) Stimulants are agents that activate, enhance, or increase neural activity. They include amphetamines and synthetic appetite suppressants such as phenmetrazine or methylphenidate. They can give rise to symptoms suggestive of intoxication, including tachycardia, pupillary dilation, elevated blood pressure, nausea or vomiting and abnormal behaviour such as fighting. agitation and impaired judgement. A full-blown delusional psychosis may occur.
Hallucinogens (e.g. marijuana, ecstasy, LSD), and are either ingested, inhaled, smoked, injected or snorted. Hallucinogens are a chemically diverse group which produce profound mental changes such as euphoria, anxiety, sensory distortion, vivid hallucination, delusion, paranoia and depression. They include mescaline and LSD.
What about the HIV/AIDS connection ? Perhaps the most evident problem caused by drug abuse is the role of drug injecting in the spread of HIV/AIDS. Sharing injecting equipment, whether the injection method be intravenous, intramuscular or beneath the skin, carries a very high risk of transmission of HIV as well as other blood-borne infectious diseases such as hepatitis B and C.
By June 2000, there were more than 34 million people with HIV/AIDS. The majority of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. The most common way of transmitting the virus is sex between men and women but a second epidemic - drug injecting – propel the virus in many, if not most countries outside Africa. » Over half of all AIDS cases in Bahrain, Georgia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Spain and Yugoslavia are attributed to injecting drug use.
» In the Russian Federation between 1998 and 1999 over 90 per cent of all new HIV infections were found among injecting drug users.
» In 1999, the number of countries reporting injecting drug use was 136, up from 80 in 1992. Of these 136 countries, 93 also identified HIV among drug injectors.
It is often overlooked that non-injecting drug abuse can also result in HIV infection. Once intoxicated, the users often let down their guard, engage in risky sexual behavior and thus contract the virus. Apart from personal physical effects on the individual, drug abuse has far-reaching social and economic effects.
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