Drugs Abuse în U.K. and România

Drugs Abuse in U.K. and Romania

I choose to write about this subject because drugs abuse is a problem, which weighs heavily on any country, no matter what other specific problems these countries may have.

Every human is asking: ”Why are drugs attractive? How does an addict behave? What can I do to help my child/friend avoid drugs? What can a community do to educate its population about the harm of drug abuse? What is best - hospitalization or therapy? Or both?” But the answer to this question came later, that nothing could be done for many generations. Today drugs problems are considered important, and every country is trying to help the population not to fall into drugs trap, because "Once an addict, always an addict" is worse than a dangerous myth, its a curse. And it's not even true. The fact is that most people who take potentially addictive illegal drugs are not taking them for a long period, because they will die of their addiction.

Success rates are impressive in residential treatment programs. They may be long and expensive but they work. However, while there are ways out of addiction, help is often hard to find and harder to take.

CHAPTER I

Dependence, Adiction and Abuse

While drugs can be and frequently are used casually and infrequently, some people seem to use them to excess. This manifest itself in several ways. For instance, lifestyle can be oriented around obtaining and taking the drug. If the particular drug is affordable, easily consumed, and does not produced obvious intoxicating effects, then drug use may not interference with other aspects of their lives to any great extent. Two examples of drug such as these are caffeine (from tea and coffee) and nicotine (from cigarettes). Both can be used excessively with relatively little immediate impact on the user’s life.

Alcohol is a slightly different case. It is somewhat less affordable, and less readily available (because of the restriction on sale), but is easily consumed. And it does produce an obvious intoxicating effect. A person who uses alcohol excessively cannot carry on their life as if they never used the drug—there are likely to be frequent periods of intoxication than can interfere with other activities. The excessive alcohol user has to dedicate more time and effort to drinking and experiencing drinking consequences than the smoker does or coffee drinker does with regard to his or her drug use.

At the other end of the spectrum is a number o illegal drugs. Because they are illegal they are almost always expensive, somewhat more difficult to obtain, and not always in an easily consumable form. Illegal drugs may vary as to degree of intoxicating effects they produce. In the doses usually taken, few would have the profound effects of a large dose of alcohol. For example, marijuana intoxication may result in some excitation, talkativeness, followed by a period of sedation, but normal activities are not otherwise impaired. Similarly, on opiate may render the user apparently sleepy, but there is no gross disruption to behavior. Even if they do not produce such intoxication, illegal drug use may dominate a person’s life. Very often this is simply because of the difficulty inherent in obtaining the money to buy drugs.

If a person’s life seems to be oriented around taking drugs, they are often said to be “dependent” on the drug. Thus, a person who drinks fifteen cups of coffee a day has to arrange his or her life to ensure that coffee is available throughout the day. The forty-a-day smoker has to have cigarettes available almost all the time and spend several hours a day smoking. The heroin user has to get sufficient money and then obtain enough “fixes” to last through the day, as well as go through the ritual of preparation and administration. In this particular case, there may be time for anything else.