Drug Abuse-Medicine

Drug abuse has a huge range of definitions related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. All of these definitions imply a negative judgment of the drug use in question (compare with the term responsible drug use for alternative views). 

Some of the drugs most often associated with this term include alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, methaqualone, and opium alkaloids. Use of these drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm, both strongly depending on local jurisdiction. Other definitions of drug abuse fall into four main categories: public health definitions, mass communication and vernacular usage, medical definitions, and political and criminal justice definitions.

Worldwide, the UN estimates there are more than 50 million regular users of heroin, cocaine and synthetic drugs.

Drug Abuse-Medicine

Drug abuse has a huge range of definitions related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. All of these definitions imply a negative judgment of the drug use in question (compare with the term responsible drug use for alternative views). Some of the drugs most often associated with this term include alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cocaine, methaqualone, and opium alkaloids. Use of these drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to possible physical, social, and psychological harm, both strongly depending on local jurisdiction. Other definitions of drug abuse fall into four main categories: public health definitions, mass communication and vernacular usage, medical definitions, and political and criminal justice definitions.

Worldwide, the UN estimates there are more than 50 million regular users of heroin, cocaine and synthetic drugs.

Drug addiction

Drug addiction is a pathological or abnormal condition which arises due to frequent drug use. The disorder of addiction involves the progression of acute drug use to the development of drug-seeking behavior, the vulnerability to relapse, and the decreased, slowed ability to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) has categorized three stages of addiction: preoccupation/anticipation, binge/intoxication, and withdrawal/negative affect. These stages are characterized, respectively, everywhere by constant cravings and preoccupation with obtaining the substance; using more of the substance than necessary to experience the intoxicating effects; and experiencing tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and decreased motivation for normal life activities. By the American Society of Addiction Medicine definition, drug addiction differs from drug dependence and drug tolerance.

It is, both among scientists and other writers, quite usual to allow the concept of drug addiction to include persons who are not drug abusers according to the definition of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The term drug addiction is then used as a category which may include the same persons who under the DSM-IV can be given the diagnosis of substance dependence or substance abuse.

Legal definition of drugs

Some governments define the term drug by law. In the United States, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act definition of "drug" includes "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals." Consistent with that definition, the U.S. separately defines narcotic drugs and controlled substances, which may include non-drugs, and explicitly excludes tobacco, caffeine and alcoholic beverages.

Governmental controls

In Canada the government has moved to remove the influence of drug companies on the medical system.[citation needed] “The influence that the pharmaceutical companies, the for-profits, are having on every aspect of medicine ... is so blatant now you'd have to be deaf, blind and dumb not to see it,” said Journal of the American Medical Association editor Dr. Catherine DeAngelis.

Medication

A medication or medicine is a drug taken to cure and/or ameliorate any symptoms of an illness or medical condition, or may be used as preventive medicine that has future benefits but does not treat any existing or pre-existing diseases or symptoms.

Dispensing of medication is often regulated by governments into three categories—over-the-counter (OTC) medications, which are available in pharmacies and supermarkets without special restrictions, behind-the-counter (BTC), which are dispensed by a pharmacist without needing a doctor's prescription, and Prescription only medicines (POM), which must be prescribed by a licensed medical professional, usually a physician.[citation needed]

In the United Kingdom, BTC medicines are called pharmacy medicines which can only be sold in registered pharmacies, by or under the supervision of a pharmacist, these medications are designated by the letter P on the label,[8] the precise distinction between OTC and prescription drugs depends on the legal jurisdiction.[citation needed]

Medications are typically produced by pharmaceutical companies and are often patented to give the developer exclusive rights to produce them, but they can also be derived from naturally occurring substance in plants called herbal medicine.[citation needed] Those that are not patented (or with expired patents) are called generic drugs since they can be produced by other companies without restrictions or licenses from the patent holder.

Drugs, both medicinal and recreational, can be administered in a number of ways:
 

• Orally, as a liquid or solid, that is absorbed through the stomach.
•  
• Sublingually, diffusing into the blood through tissues under the tongue. 
   
• Inhaled, (breathed into the lungs), as a vapor. 
   
• Injected as a liquid either: intramuscular, intravenous, intraperitoneal, intraosseous. 
   
• Rectally as a suppository, that is absorbed by the colon. 
   
• Vaginally as a suppository, primarily to treat vaginal infections. 
   
• Bolus, a substance into the stomach to dissolve slowly. 
   
• Insufflation, or snorted into the nose. 
   
• Many drugs can be administered in a variety of ways.

Drug-Intro

A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.

In pharmacology, a drug is "a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being." Drugs may be prescribed for a limited duration, or on a regular basis for chronic disorders.

Recreational drugs are chemical substances that affect the central nervous system, such as opioids or hallucinogens. They may be used for perceived beneficial effects on perception, consciousness, personality, and behavior. Some drugs can cause addiction and habituation.

Drugs are usually distinguished from endogenous biochemicals by being introduced from outside the organism.[citation needed] For example, insulin is a hormone that is synthesized in the body; it is called a hormone when it is synthesized by the pancreas inside the body, but if it is introduced into the body from outside, it is called a drug.[citation needed]

Many natural substances such as beers, wines, and some mushrooms, blur the line between food and drugs, as when ingested they affect the functioning of both mind and body.

Alternative Medicine

What Alternative Medicine

Literally, Alternative Medicine alternatives to "something else", this "something else" is western medicine or allopathy or orthodox medicine.

This term is used loosely to cover all forms of medicine except allopathy. In 1973, the Faculty of Medicine, University of Rome convened the first World Congress of alternative therapies, and the provisional program contained no less than 135 different therapies. Experts W.H.O. have also identified and enlisted more than 100 types of practices and cried as traditional medicines.

These forms of medicine are known as traditional medicine (as most of them have been practiced since time immemorial), complementary medicine (such as drugs, allopathic medicine, complementary in many instances-a-) (if different from orthodox medicine), holistic medicine (the Most of alternative medicine consider the human body as a whole being including physical, mental, social and spiritual), ethnic medicine (including traditional systems of health care are closely associated with living and mass culture), natural medicine (such as methods of treatment based on the laws of nature and natural materials are used to treat patients).

There are more than 100 systems in the practice of alternative medicine is still the world. Each country, region or area has its own traditional system of health and medical care, as it is for Chinese acupuncture, French, magnetic healing, for the Germans, Heil Praxis, in English - Phytotherapy for India - Ayurveda, because Islamic countries -- Unani and the southern part of the country - Siddha, for Japan - Shiatsu, etc.

The most popular forms of alternative medicine Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, Siddha, naturopathy, yoga therapy, acupuncture, acupressure, magnetic therapy, shiatsu, herbal medicine, meditation, aromatherapy, Bach Flowers Gem therapy, color therapy, hydrotherapy, Diet Therapy and Reiki.