Drug effects and Policies

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Drug effects and Policies

Psychoactive drugs refer to substances that interfere with the brain’s normal functioning and cause changes in the user’s mood, behavior, feelings, and thoughts. Some examples of psychoactive drugs include marijuana, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and some pain medications. Effects associated with the use of psychoactive drugs can be objective, subjective or chronic. Subjective drug effects are the drug effects that the user experiences internally. Other people will only know about the effect through verbal reports from users. An example of a subjective effect of using psychoactive drugs includes health conditions that affect a person internally. For instance, a chronic alcohol user is at risk of developing liver cirrhosis. Similarly, a tobacco or marijuana smoker is likely to develop breathing problems and lung cancer. These are subjective effects because outsiders will not know unless the user tells them they are not visible. Objective effects are easily measured and perceived by outsiders. An example of an objective effect of psychoactive drugs is truancy, weight loss, and poor personal hygiene. These are the changes that the people around the drug user are likely to notice by just looking at the individual. Drug users are likely to suffer weight loss, especially if they do not eat a balanced diet. Additionally, they tend to observe poor hygiene; it would not be a surprise to find them in unkempt hair and dirty clothes. Drug users develop habits such as missing work or school. These are habits that other people can easily notice. Chronic drug effects include hallucinations, anxiety, paranoia, depression, and aggression (Giacomello, 2017). Most chronic issues are linked to mental health problems and disorders. Worth noting, chronic drug users find it difficult to control their use of drugs.

For various reasons, American drug policies are shaped by the minority drug users and their status within the dominant culture. Traditionally, drug use has predominantly been a problem for minority groups (Giacomello, 2017). Minority groups, particularly people of color, are more likely to find themselves at odds with the law than their white counterparts. Their problems stem from the fact that they are more exposed to poverty than other ethnicities. This is as a result of their low economic status, which limits their chances of going through higher education and securing meaningful employment. People of color are often predisposed to dealing drugs and street violence because they live in risky neighborhoods. Minority groups will thus shape most drug policies because they make up the majority of the offenders by default. To ensure the policies are effective, they are tailor-made to target the minority groups. Because of the high risk of drug use among minority groups, policies often employ code words such as hard-core drug user, underclass drug user, and high risk youth in the language. Minority groups are painted as the more deviant, dangerous group that is prone to drug abuse than their middle-class counterparts. Minority groups are characterized by poverty, high unemployment, poor welfare, crime, mother-only households, and social breakdown. When all these factors are combined, they place minority groups at a disadvantage. Although United States drug laws tend to be race-neutral at face value, their enforcement is largely biased. Race-neutral policies should not violate minority groups instead, they should guarantee equal protection for all people.

References

Giacomello, C. (2017). Women and Drug Policies in Latin America: A Critical Review of the United Nations Resolution ‘Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Drug‐Related Policies and Programmes’. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 56(3), 288-308.

Giacomello, C. (2017). Drug-drug interactions and their harmful effects in hospitalised patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis. European journal of clinical pharmacology, 74(1), 15-27.