Drugs – Old Problem – New Solutions

It is easier to understand why drugs are such a problem in the world today if you think about why it is that we call substance abuse and dependence – recreational drug use. Drugs are an old problem in society – escapist drugs having been used traditionally to ease the pressures of life, yet destructive levels of addiction were rare. The Gin Lane conditions of the Hogarth cartoon – in which people...

Compulsion: Drug Use and Addiction

There is no essential difference as between any form of obsessive- compulsive behavior and substance abuse and dependence. Traditional medical and psychiatric texts have twisted themselves into knots, in trying to maintain a logical distinction as between compulsive behavior, and substance abuse when in reality they are the same – a means to get relief from painful or negative feelings and emotions. With all...

Drug Abuse & The Eye

Of the many symptoms of drug abuse are reported eye conditions – the eye’s of drug users are often red, perhaps glassy, fixed or staring, sometimes the eyes are watery in appearance. In 2005 an article appeared in Eye magazine about Class A drug effects on drug users eyes. The article notes that in Britain in the year 2000/1 there were 118,500 patients were in treatment with drug abuse agencies or...

Nutritional Deficiency and Drug Use

The impact of drug use on nutrition is one of the adverse side effects that fails to get a mention in standard drug warning lists. With drugs so widely and commonly used in modern healthcare practice, we have become familiar with the fact that drug use has adverse side effects. We accept that when we use a drug to achieve a primary purpose, such as pain relief, that there is always a number of adverse “side...

Tiger Moms and Infant Drugs

At the beginning of this year, Amy Chua published a book, the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – a non-fiction autobiography that rigorously exposed a strict and disciplinarian style of parenting, as practiced by Amy Chua on her daughters. The book drew widespread criticism of Amy Chua’s parenting style – some denouncing it as barbaric and cruel. Yet, beneath the surface of a mother – daughter...