Themes Of Psychoactive Drugs

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A drug is considered psychoactive if it has an effect on the central nervous system which alters a person’s thought and behavior (Cole & Cole, 1963). Humans have had a long-running affair with psychoactive substances and have responded to the demand for them with both altruism and opportunism. While much of pharmaceutical industry genuinely seeks and works for the betterment of mankind, it is also driven and influenced by capitalism and power struggles. This has been the case since man first discovered that substances can be refined, combined and consumed to provide physical and mental relief from suffering. The continuous improvements in drug potencies and in the processes for manufacturing and distributing them, ingenious marketing campaigns, and the consideration of consumers’ favored methods of intake all play roles in how a drug is embraced by society. Historical Themes of Psychoactive Drugs Inaba and Cohen (2007, 2011) have assimilated these factors into five interactive …show more content…

This might depend on whether the drug in question is a product of legal research to produce a legitimate medicine or if it is the product of a bathtub chemist in a black market where consumers simply will not buy drugs that do not produce the desired effect. The industry, with all the corporate power of research facilities and marketing campaigns behind it, can often be ambiguous where cause and effect are concerned. It has been accused of fabricating “disorders” that can be treated by expensive drugs discovered during research and offering incentives for clinicians to diagnose and prescribe accordingly. Hara refers to this difference in perspectives as the “technical and social determinist models” and suggests that the truth lies somewhere between the two (2003, pp. 8-10). One thing is clear, though, according to

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