Carroll-Durrant/Drugs in Modern Society

Preface

The continuing interest of Americans in the wellness and human potential movements, stress management, holistic health care, natural foods, and physical fitness suggests that people are increasingly concerned about their health and about preventing health problems. This emphasis on "self-care" and health enhancement and empowerment is, in part, a reaction to the recognized limits of medical care for those already sick or injured. More important, "self-care" and wellness-promoting activities are the result of a growing awareness that one's lifestyle and personal health habits play critical roles in the developments of avoidable diseases and injuries.

According to supportive data for Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives¹ and its Midcourse Review,² many of our most pressing health problems are related to the use of alcohol and other drugs, including tobacco.

After a recent ten-year decline in the use of illegal drugs and tobacco use, surveys indicate increasing numbers of young Americans are again abusing marijuana, engaging in binge drinking, and starting to smoke cigarettes. Many others have become fascinated with heroin and the perceived thrill of "club drugs" and "herbal remedies," and cigar smoking has again become fashionable, after nearly three generations of decreasing use. The staggering toll that alcohol and other drug problems place on society, health status, and the economy is also growing once more.

Alcohol use is implicated in nearly half of all intentional injuries, such as homicides and suicides. In addition, alcohol-related traffic accidents are still one of the leading killers of young Americans.

Abuse of alcohol and other drugs significantly increases the risk of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This can take place directly through the sharing of contaminated needles, sexual contact with intravenous drug abusers and other drug injectors, or in utero infection, or indirectly through adverse effects on immune system functioning and the increased risk of unwanted or unsafe sexual practices.

Tobacco use is responsible for more than one of five deaths in the United States and is the most important preventable cause of death and disease in our society. The use of tobacco products in an acknowledged, major risk factor for diseases of the heart and blood vessels, chronic bronchitis and emphysema; cancers of the lung, larynx, oral cavity, esophagus, pancreas, and bladder; and other problems, such as respiratory infections and stomach ulcers.

Although the individual's role in promoting health and preventing disease is becoming more important, it is recognized that people usually make personal lifestyle choices within a society that glamorizes many hazardous behaviors through advertising and the mass media. Social influences involving peer pressure and the encouragement of risk-taking activities have a tremendous impact, especially on young people. In additions, society continues to support industries that produce unhealthful products, unevenly enacts and enforces laws against behaviors such as driving while intoxicated, and offers somewhat ambiguous messages about those behaviors that are not advisable.³

In light of the widespread use and abuse of drugs and medications in America, this text is designed for use in drug education courses for students from a variety of disciplines. Drugs in Modern Society provides current, accurate, and documented information about drug substances presented in a scientific, logical, and objective manner. Mind-changing of psychoactive drugs are the major focus of this text, but consideration is also given to nonpsychoactives that are frequently misused and to the legal recreational or social drugs frequently viewed as part of the real drug problem in America.

From a philosophical perspective, this book seeks to enhance freedom of choice in terms of drug use or nonuse. Free choices can be made in consideration of how personal actions affect oneself. However, truly free choices also concern one's relations with other people, " . . . relations involving love, trust, integrity, responsibility, honor, and sacrifice."⁴

1. Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Public Health Service, 1990).

2. Healthy People 2000: Midcourse Review and 1995 Revisions (Hyattsville, Md.: U.S. Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, 1995).

3. Julius B. Richmond, Healthy People-The SurgeonGeneral's report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, (Washington, D.C. GPO, 1979), 17.

4. Robert D. Russell, "Holistic Health." Chap. 1 in Education in the 80's: Health Education, ed. Robert D. Russell, (Washington, D.C. National Education Association, 1981), 21.

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