Drug abuse, definition

Additionally, chronic drug use has been linked to neuropsychological problems that in turn make it harder to stop the cycle of abuse. Psychoactive drugs by definition affect the brain, and long-term or acute exposure to psychoactive substances can be toxic. Furthermore, we know that drug abuse can increase the risks of stroke, brain injury related to accidents, malnutrition, or liver damage, all of which can adversely affect brain function as well. 

A common vocabulary has not been established in the field of prescription drug abuse. Because much of the survey data collected in this area refer to nonmedical use of prescription drugs, this definition of abuse, rather than that of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), is used. Also, because physical dependence to prescription medications can develop during medically supervised appropriate use, the term addiction is used to reflect dependence as defined by the DSM. 

DSM-IV has an accepted definition for addiction based upon a very severe form of drug abuse. True or False. 

There are no definitive numbers available on GHB abuse and overdoses, but various agencies have started tracking this information. The DEA reports more than 7,100 GHB overdoses and encounters with law enforcement between 1990 and 2001. Over that same time period, 65 GHB-related deaths, mainly from respiratory depression, have been documented. The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) listed 20 emergency room episodes in 1992, and the number of episodes has climbed steadily since then to 2,973 in 1999. That number leaped to 4,969 in 2000. 

The World Health Organizahon adopts the definition of the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Drugs (1971). Drug abuse means the use of psychotropic substances in a way that woidd constitute a public health and social problem. ... 

The ASHP definition does not include reactions due to drug withdrawal, drug abuse, poisoning, or drug complications. 

Definition A drug psychosis, drug dependence, non-dependent drug abuse and accidental poisoning caused by use of opiates, cocaine, stimulants, cannabis or hallucinogens. 

My observation about the involuntary patient requires a further comment. Psychiatrists not only define what they consider unwanted behaviors as diseases, for example, self-abuse and homosexuality in the past, drug abuse and homophobia today they also define what they consider improved behaviors—produced, for example, by lobotomy, electroshock, or psychotropic drugs—as the results of treatments. In 1948 Paul Hoch (1902-1964), professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and the Commissioner of Mental Hygiene for New York State, explained the therapeutic effectiveness of physical treatments of mental illnesses as follows This brings us for a moment to a discussion of the brain damage produced by electroshock. Is a certain amount of brain damage not necessary in this type of treatment Frontal lobotomy indicates that improvement takes place by a definite damage of certain parts of... 

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