PS268 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Drug Delivery, Body Water, Nicotine
Document Summary
Changing attitudes towards drugs results in changes in the law: early government approach (1800s) laissez-faire (non-intervention, subsequent approach (1900s and onwards) control. Effects of drug use to society: deaths, emergency room visits, drugs in the workplace and lost productivity, broken homes, illnesses, shorted lives, etc, cost of maintaining habit, cost of criminal behaviour, cost of treating patients, fetel alcohol syndrome. Some definitions: toxicity: the physical of psychological harm that a drug might present to the user, what makes a drug toxic, psychological toxicity. What the user did while on the drug. Death rate: more people die from legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol compared to illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin. Substance dependance: three basic processes, tolerance, physical dependance, psychological dependance. Continued drug use is motivated by a strong craving for the pleasurable effects of the drug: physical dependance. Continued drug use to avoid the consequences of physical withdrawal symptoms.
