The drug
The availability of the drug is obviously a prerequisite for abuse and dependence, and the rapid transport methods of the modern world ensure that most drugs are obtainable everywhere. Transportation of drugs is not, of course, a recent occurrence – opium was moved halfway round the world centuries ago – but modern communications have greatly increased the speed and volume of this traffic. It is easy to be misled by reports in the media of vast quantities of illicit drugs coming into developed countries and to believe that the traffic is entirely one way. Going in the opposite direction, however, are equally vast quantities of alcohol and manufactured drugs which pose problems of their own to the countries that import them, and which are as vital to the economies of the exporting countries as the highly profitable cash crops of illicit drugs are to their producers. In addition to the availability of a drug, the form in which it is available is very important. Modern chemical techniques permit the extraction of highly purified and very potent forms of drugs at source, making them easier to transport and smuggle, and because of their greater potency, much more efficient at causing dependence. For example, one can only conjecture how long it would take a Native South American to chew sufficient coca leaves to obtain the same dose of cocaine as that in a single vial of ‘crack’, the purified version of cocaine currently in vogue in the USA and Europe; and it is unlikely that the Native American ever achieves blood levels (or nervoussystem levels) of cocaine sufficient to cause serious dependence. Again, this is nothing new: the ability to distil alcohol must have had equally dramatic effects when it was first discovered. Similarly, it can be understood that the invention and dispersal of the syringe and needle has had a profound effect upon drug abuse and dependence, by virtue of the ability to deliver large doses of dependence-producing drugs straight into the bloodstream and thence to the brain. Although a few people become dependent upon apparently extraordinary drugs, such as laxatives, most drug dependence is concerned with just a few types of psychoactive substances. The question arises therefore as to how these drugs produce dependence. What is it that they have in common? It is immediately apparent that they have very different chemical and pharmacological properties and affect different parts of the central nervous system and different
The availability of the drug is obviously a prerequisite for abuse and dependence, and the rapid transport methods of the modern world ensure that most drugs are obtainable everywhere. Transportation of drugs is not, of course, a recent occurrence – opium was moved halfway round the world centuries ago – but modern communications have greatly increased the speed and volume of this traffic. It is easy to be misled by reports in the media of vast quantities of illicit drugs coming into developed countries and to believe that the traffic is entirely one way. Going in the opposite direction, however, are equally vast quantities of alcohol and manufactured drugs which pose problems of their own to the countries that import them, and which are as vital to the economies of the exporting countries as the highly profitable cash crops of illicit drugs are to their producers. In addition to the availability of a drug, the form in which it is available is very important. Modern chemical techniques permit the extraction of highly purified and very potent forms of drugs at source, making them easier to transport and smuggle, and because of their greater potency, much more efficient at causing dependence. For example, one can only conjecture how long it would take a Native South American to chew sufficient coca leaves to obtain the same dose of cocaine as that in a single vial of ‘crack’, the purified version of cocaine currently in vogue in the USA and Europe; and it is unlikely that the Native American ever achieves blood levels (or nervoussystem levels) of cocaine sufficient to cause serious dependence. Again, this is nothing new: the ability to distil alcohol must have had equally dramatic effects when it was first discovered. Similarly, it can be understood that the invention and dispersal of the syringe and needle has had a profound effect upon drug abuse and dependence, by virtue of the ability to deliver large doses of dependence-producing drugs straight into the bloodstream and thence to the brain. Although a few people become dependent upon apparently extraordinary drugs, such as laxatives, most drug dependence is concerned with just a few types of psychoactive substances. The question arises therefore as to how these drugs produce dependence. What is it that they have in common? It is immediately apparent that they have very different chemical and pharmacological properties and affect different parts of the central nervous system and different
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