Effects of Different Types of Illegal Drugs

Headlines on drug abuse in the U.S. and around the world suggest to the popular imagination that there is an unprecedented connection between drug use and the deterioration or destruction of the quality of life. In any case, the numbers are impressive. In 1996, some 26 million Americans used illegal drugs. Half of those used them at least once a month. Currently, 5.5 million are so severely affected by drugs that they need clinical treatment (Fox & Miller, 1997). Now there is a view that drug use is a cyclical phenomenon, as pointed out in Holden's (1989) survey of American cocaine epidemics since 1900. Nevertheless, the structure of drug use has been consistent through the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1991, for example, former students of a Washington, D.C., junior high school were jailed for selling drugs to current students and recruiting students as dealers and couriers for har

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ides very effective relief from pain and a strong sense of well being" (Nadelmann & McNeeley, 1996, p. 83). This reflects the fact that it depresses both respiration and nervous system. However, the euphoric power is paramount. Heroin is considered the most powerfully euphoric drug, thus the most addictive. An estimated 500,000 Americans are currently addicted to it (Nadelmann & McNeeley, 1996). By the way, Fox and Miller (1996, p. 73) say that nicotine (tobacco) and alcohol (liquor) are more dangerous than either heroin or cocaine. Addiction to heroin is acknowledged as physical; assertions about cocaine's psychologically but not-physically addictive powers have never been made for heroin. On the other hand, drug treatment against heroin has been discovered. The drug methadone, "an opiate agonist, wards off withdrawal symptoms and suppresses drug craving among opiate addicts by stabilizing blood levels of the drug and its metabolites. . . . Methadone is to heroin users what nicotine skin patches are to tobacco smokers" (Nadelmann & McNeeley, 1996, p. 84). Controversy surrounds methadone in the medical community because--like heroin--it is highly regulated. However, methadone does not alter consciousness as heroin does. This makes
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1992
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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