Classwork Exercise and Series (Basic Science-JSS2): DRUG ABUSE

Week 5

Topic: Drug Abuse

Introduction                                            

Drug abuse is a serious public health problem. It affects almost every community and family.

Meaning of drug and drug abuse

Drug: is a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.

Drug abuse: is the use of illegal drugs or the misuse of prescription or over-the-counter drugs for at least a year with negative consequences. In the word, drug abuse is the habitual use of drugs to alter one’s mood, emotion, or state of consciousness.

Methods of Drug Use

This is also called drug delivery. The most common methods of delivering drug include:

1. Non-invasive oral (mouth/ingestion)
2. Nasal or Pneumonial (inhalation)
3. Smoking
4. Injection
5. Tattooing

Common Ways of Misusing Drugs

Some people misuse drugs ignorantly while others do so by the profession they have chosen in life e.g. athletes, wrestler. Ways of misusing drugs include:

• By addiction: This is recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in an activity that is difficult to discontinue once the individual has commenced the activity. The term addiction is often reserved for the abuse of substances that directly stimulate the brain. It has been extended to activities such obsessive gambling, drinking, smiting and eating.

• Self Injecting: some athletes indulge in self-injecting of drugs in order to improve their performances. This is called doping.

• Over-dose and over eating: by own mistake, a patient may ingest more tablets of prescribed drugs in order to quicken recovery. This is mere ignorant. Excessive eating of certain food items like kolanut during examination can leads to misuse.

• Abduction, kidnapping and raping action: some activities such as raping, kidnapping or abduction are done under the influence of conscious drug abuse in other to succeed. Also, the victim may be drugged purposely so that he/she would not raise alarm or resist the action.

Social Risk Factors in Drug Abuse

1. Social Isolation
2. Broken Homes
3. Peer influence
4. Wealth Acquisition (Materialistic value)
5. Workplace Violence
6. Social Anxiety
7. Drug Court
8. War on Drugs
9. Drug Prohibition

Ways of preventing Drug Abuse

Drug abuse or drug misuse may be prevented in the following ways:

1. Appropriate but harsh legislation against abusers.
2. Application of religious ethics.
3. Avoiding the sharing of injection needles so as to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS infection.
4. Using drugs only as prescribed by doctors.
5. Regular awareness campaign against drug misuse.