HLTH 237 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Andrew Sherratt, Social History, Stimulant
29 Apr 2013
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Document Summary
Contributed to our understanding of consumption habits. The ways in which people use psychoactive substances is situated in beliefs and social practices. In order to understand drug use, you have to understand the meaning of the drug to the users. Drug: a category of substances taken into human body for purposes other than nutrition. Changes in body chemistry to achieve psychological rather than physiological effects: constrained by law, misleading. Human beings use drugs to alter their mental states: ignores other aspects of consumption. Ef food or drink: modern societies have made drugs a commodity. Modern society has made more powerful and pure psychoactive substances. Dangerous and not used like traditional practises in the past. Study of culture and society: includes beliefs, practices that shape personalities, shared ideas and practices, unconscious structures that guide behaviours, shared symbols, individual and group identities, social rituals, norms and behaviours. All are formed from culture and society.
