Posts Tagged ‘national institute on drug abuse’

What is the most addictive drug?

January 27th, 2012

This is a question that people often ask but is actually a very difficult one to answer. Addiction is not just one single and simple process, it is a complex process that has both physical and psychological aspects. Nevertheless despite this complexity two attempts have been made to determine the most addictive drug. Independently Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz of the University of California at San Francisco, ranked six psychoactive substances, nicotine, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and marijuana, on the five criteria they felt were most important in addiction.

The first of these criteria was withdrawal. This is defined as the severity of withdrawal symptoms produced by stopping the use of the drug. Both researchers rated alcohol as having the most severe withdrawal symptoms, for example hallucinations and convulsions, and the fact that withdrawal from alcohol is the only one of the included drugs that is potentially fatal.

The second criterion is reinforcement, that is the drug’s tendency to induce users to take it again and again. This is influenced by the feelings that taking the drug brings, that is whether it is a pleasurable high or not, obviously if the feelings are negative there will be little incentive to repeat the experience. Again both researchers were in agreement and rated cocaine as the most reinforcing.

The third criterion was tolerance, this is defined as the user’s need to have ever-increasing doses to get the same effect. For the first time the researchers disagree with Henningfield rating heroin first and Benowitz rating cocaine.

The fourth criterion is dependence. This is defined as the difficulty in quitting, or staying off the drug, usually measured by the number of users who eventually become dependent. For many dependence is viewed as the hallmark of addiction and how ‘addiction’ is usually measured by the medical profession. For this criterion both researchers are again in agreement as they rate nicotine highest for dependence. For the other drugs they both rated them in the same order that is highest for dependence, nicotine, then heroin, cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and last marijuana.

The final criterion is intoxication. This is the degree of intoxication produced by the drug in typical use. Again the researchers are in agreement and rate alcohol as the most intoxicating of the drugs.

Given the complexity of the addictive process it is not surprising that there is not a clear ‘winner’ in all criteria. What some may find surprising is that for both researchers caffeine ranked higher than marijuana on a number of the criteria and indeed Berowitz rates caffeine higher than marijuana for dependence.

These results have been quoted many times by many researchers, commentators and reporters. They are usually interpreted as nicotine, or tobacco smoking, being named the most addictive substance purely on the definition of the difficulty in refraining. What the results do show is that addiction is a complex and multi-facetted activity and that it is impossible to reduce it to a simple metric.

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Danger Lurking Underneath Your Kitchen Sink

January 24th, 2012

Most people think that drugs are something you have to buy on the street, but you needn’t look any further than underneath your kitchen sink. Inhalants are substances whose vapors can be inhaled to produce a mind-altering effect. They can be found in such items as:

  • Volatile solvents (ex: paint thinners, degreasers and glues)
  • Aerosols (ex: hair spray and vegetable cooking oil)
  • Ases (ex: ether, nitrous oxide and propane)
  • Nitrates (ex: cyclohexyl nitrite, amyl nitrite and butyl nitrite)

Inhalants are often inhaled in one of several ways which include:

  • Sniffing
  • Snorting or spraying the inhalant directly into the nose or mouth
  • Putting the inhalant into a bag or other container and then inhaling it
  • Putting the vapor on a rag
  • Inhaling nitrous oxide from balloons

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), inhalants are often among the first drugs that young people use. People use inhalants because they are cheap, can be purchased legally, and are easy to obtain. It’s frightening to think that any child can go underneath their kitchen sink when their parents aren’t home and engage themselves in a form of drug abuse. That is why it is important for parents to sit down and talk to their children at an early age about the dangers of drug abuse. In NIDA’s 2005 Monitoring the Future study, 17.1% of 8th graders, 13.1% of 10th graders, and 11.4% of 12th graders said they had abused inhalants at least once.

While the immediate effects of inhalants might seem harmless to the abuser, the effects can be damaging. Once the vapors from inhalants enter your body, some of the chemicals are absorbed by parts of the brain and nervous system. With the exception of nitrites, which increase the size of blood vessels and relax the muscles, all inhalants slow down the functions of the human body. Some of the short term effects seen include: increased heart rate, hallucinations, losing consciousness, nausea and/or vomiting, loss of coordination and slurred speech.

Other dangers included with inhalants is the fact that because they are so incredibly easy to get and are most often found in household items, a lot of people fail to realize how addictive they are. Like many drugs, most people who become addicted to inhalants develop into long-time users which puts them at risk for long time effects such as: brain damage, muscle weakness, depression, headaches and nosebleeds and loss of smell.
Younger people are likely to use inhalants more than any other age group, and this is due, in large part, to lack of parental influence/involvement or isolation from his/her community. Young adults who have parents that aren’t home a lot are more likely to get into trouble and have an increased risk of using inhalants or any other form of drug. Parents need to step up to the plate and intervene before it’s too late.

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Drug Abuse 101 – What You Absolutely Need to Know

June 14th, 2011

Due to the change in world’s social and economic pattern with so much of stressors and so less time for each other and even for oneself to get relaxed, there is a hug scope for the immature population to go for unnatural and short-lived pleasures which although might pose severe threat to one’s own health and well being and even to life. Hence late teenagers and people in early twenties are those who are most prone to it as they both have reason and accessibility for the same.

Definitions

Drug abuse refers to self or peer medication of a drug in any amount or in any manner that cannot be medically or socially justified for its use.
Drug addiction means the compulsive use of a drug, procuring it to take precedence over other activities.
Drug habituation means less intense craving of the drug.

Problem statement

According to NIDA (national institute on drug abuse) the Monitoring the Future survey that is studying the trends since many years shows that there has been significantly decreased consumption of all the types of drugs except the inhalants. Although there has been decreasing trends but they are not at all satisfying as there are still a large number of teenagers specially the 8th graders who tend to get involved into this.

The problem with these types of drug is both direct and indirect. The direct effect of these drugs is for e.g. addiction, insomnia, hyper somnolence, increased reaction time and so on and so forth. But the indirect ones are equally dangerous for e.g. easy prey to AIDS, Hepatitis B & C and other infectious diseases.

Cause of the problem, why abuse?

The root cause of the problem are manifold but the main causes are the teenagers with a history of drug abuse in the family, single parent family, economically or socially deprived children and surprisingly teenagers of Hispanic origin.

Types

There are many different types of drug abuse. These have traditionally been divided based on the action on the brain, chemical salt or the purpose for which it is used medically or socially. Some of these are:

a) Nicotine used in cigarette

One of most heavily used and the most damaging of the drugs. It damages not only the lungs and immunity but also the whole body. Known to be implicated in the causation on lung, ovarian, skin and certain other cancers.

b) Cocaine

Known to have damaging effects on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems.

c) LSD

Causes hypertension, tachycardia and insomnia. Also disturbs the control of body temperature.

d) Marijuana

Has caused memory and learning disabilities.

e) Methamphetamine

Insomnia, anorexia, hyperactivity and psychosis are its major side effects.

f) Pain medications

Can lead to dependence and drug craving.

g) Club drugs & date rape drugs

Causes decreased muscle power and amnesia.

h) Steroids

In males causes certain feminine changes and vice versa in males besides causes overall retarded development.

Diagnosing drug abuse

Although the diagnosis of the abuse is not difficult at a full-blown stage but the important features at an early stage are the teenager becoming less social, poor performance at school, anorexia, unusual sleep pattern and weakness.

Problem solving

The main success lies in convincing the patient two things: first that the drug is not helping him or her in any way and secondly the drug abuse can be given up in a joint effort. Obviously that means managing the drug abuse needs both medical and social treatment.

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