What I need: Guided Response: Review several of your colleagues’ posts and respond to at least two of your peers by 11:59 p.m. on Day 7 of the week. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful interactive discourse in this discussion. Evaluate and describe the quality of your colleague’s argument. How did they use the literature to support the statements made? Do you agree with the argument? Why, or why not? What insights did your colleague include which you had not considered? What might you suggest your colleague consider which was not included? Please use your research to support your assertions.
Prior to beginning work on this discussion, read the required chapters from the text and
review the required articles for this week. Humans have engaged in psychoactive drug use,
sometimes in formal (ceremonial) settings and sometimes recreationally, since before
recorded history. It has only been in the last century or so that abuse and addiction have
become large-scale problems. Using the literature and your own insights into these issues,
formulate an argument as to why the problem has reached its current scale. In your
discussion, evaluate the employment of psychoactive drugs from the aspects of a risk-benefits
analysis and ethical considerations such as the risk of addiction versus the cost of punitive
action. Also explain purely pharmacological issues such as pharmacokinetics and routes of
drug administration and dose. If needed, include factors such as supply, cultural attitudes to
drug use, and the context of drug use.
What I need: Guided Response: Review several of your colleagues’ posts and
respond to at least two of your peers by 11:59 p.m. on Day 7 of the week. You are encouraged
to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful interactive
discourse in this discussion. Evaluate and describe the quality of your colleague’s argument.
How did they use the literature to support the statements made? Do you agree with the
argument? Why, or why not? What insights did your colleague include which you had not
considered? What might you suggest your colleague consider which was not included? Please
use your research to support your assertions.
Student One:
Candice Welsh
Substance abuse and addiction has skyrocketed over the past few decades due to many
factors. Fitzpatrick (2018) writes that there are four major types of psychoactive substances:
“inebriants (e.g., alcohol), stimulants (e.g., betel nuts, caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, ephedrine),
opiates and other narcotics (e.g., opium and its derivatives, such as heroin), and
hallucinogens (e.g., mescaline, psilocybin, and synthetics such as LSD)” (p. 11). Looking into
the history of drugs can give a lot of perspective as to the cause of rising addiction levels. For
example, the 19th century is when we began to see “active substances in drugs extracted” and
there were no regulations by prescribers at that time (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia,
2021). In fact, the first legal regulations in the United States were in 1875 which outlawed
opium dens in San Francisco. There were many that tried to snuff out the addictive
substances such as cocaine and narcotics use in the 1920s and then prohibition of alcohol
(which was repealed in 1933). There were school based informational programs to educate
students on the effects of drug abuse and addiction such as the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education) program which was founded in 1983. But sometimes, these did not
help. According to the Center for Disease Control in 2017, “heroin-related overdose deaths
more than tripled between 2010 and 2015” because of the lower street price of heroin over
the years (Cashin, 2017, p. 7). And even worse than heroin, the newer and more potent drug,
Fentanyl has increased these death totals. The problem is that these types of drugs are like
the neurotransmitters endorphin and enkephalin, which are responsible for “reduced pain,
decreased alertness, and slowed respiration” (Cashin, 2017. p. 12). There is a social aspect of
taking drugs and drinking alcohol, especially in college. It is said that that stage of life is
supposed to be a constant party and the time to find out who you are. The fact that college
students have placed different types of drugs into two main categories (uppers and downers)
in general should be very concerning. According to Witcraft et al (2020), uppers are drugs
like Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta whilst downers are opioids, benzodiazepines, and sleep
aids (p. 678). Surprisingly, the uppers seem to be abused more than downers because college
students believe they need the “concentration” from those drugs to get their work done. A
study was completed with 509 undergraduate students in a southern United States college
between November and December 2014. They were given questionnaires about prescription
drug abuse (PDA) in both high school and college. The results showed that 21.4% of
participants reported PDA in high school and 35.4% reported PDA in college (Witcraft et al,
2020, p. 680). Another similar study was conducted of 202 college students but this time, it
was about personality factors and stress leading to substance abuse. The results showed that
neuroticism and stress were predictability factors of drug use (Coleman & Trunzo, 2015). The
U.S. government is trying to pass laws that could help the fight against drug abuse and
addiction. The Affordable Care Act has attempted to get Americans health insurance at
affordable rates so that they can seek treatment more willingly. The Center for Disease
Control estimated that those Americans without health insurance fell from 16% in 2010 to
8.9% in 2016 (Center for Disease Control, 2023). I believe this has helped many people who
have addictions but there is still more work to be done.
References
Cashin, H. J. (2017). The Heroin Crisis. National Highlights Inc.
Center for Disease Control (2023). Retrieved
from https://www.cdc.gov/datastatistics/index.htmlLinks to an external site.
Coleman, J., & Trunzo, J. (2015). Personality, Social Stress, and Drug Use Among College
Students. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 20(1), 52–
56. https://doi.org/10.24839/2164-8204.JN20.1.52Links to an external site.
Drug addiction and drug abuse. (2021). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1–5.
Fitzpatrick, S. M. (2018). Ancient psychoactive substances. University Press of Florida.
Witcraft, S. M., Smith, C., Pollard, M., & Dixon, L. J. (2020). Is Greek affiliation a
prescription for drug abuse? Examining misuse of prescription stimulants and downers in
high school and college. Journal of American College Health, 68(7), 678–682.
Student Two:
Barbara Larios
Hi class,
I have several people in my family who is addicts and have been addicted for many years.
From my experience, the people I have around who suffer from addiction have entered this
stage because of unresolved trauma. It was a form of coping with the pain caused by their
trauma. The initial drugs they used gave them a sense of relief (aka reward) and with time
they needed something stronger. The people that I am focusing on here have been using
different forms of drugs for over 20 years. In an article that talks about coping mechanisms
the authors state that the reward is the relief of pain, replacing the pain they feel with a
sense of comfort like scratching an area that is itching, (Smedley, 2015). When we
experience an itch there may be times when it can be ignored or just a slight rub will do.
However, imagine being bitten by a mosquito on a hot summer day. The skin swells a bit and
the bite itches so much that there is no other option than to scratch. Once we scratch the
bite only seems to get worse and the only relief, we can get comes from scratching. It is
insanity at its best because scratching only makes it worse while also making it feel better at
the same time. Addicts suffer a similar faith.
Once the use of drugs sets in and becomes an addiction the search for the same type of high
begins and in many cases, the only time they find relief from that craving is when they
increase their intake or find a drug that is harder. Once they begin to use meth their new
journey begins. the video that covers stimulants states that meth triggers the release of
dopamine that can last up to eight hours with a feeling of euphoria, (Khanacademymedicine,
2014). It becomes a cycle of seeking that good feeling that only lasts such a short time that
life becomes about the drug and nothing else.
Indigenous people lived off the land and used many of the plants that are deemed dangerous
if not properly used as medicine. Long ago there was no sense of feeling lost or alone because
they lived in communities that supported the success of individuals because they were all
one village. In the article, indigenous Hawaiian psychoactive drug use, the authors talk about
the introduction of alcohol to the island and its people. It also talks about “awa”, a
psychoactive drug that was used by the island people prior to being invaded. It was a sacred
drink that was used in ceremonies and baptisms. It was a psychoactive drink that was driven
by kavalactones found in the shrubs of ‘awa. The pharmacological effect of kavalactones is
non-narcotic, opiate, alcoholic, fermented, hallucinogenic, and physiologically nonaddicting. Not only was the ‘awa missing all of those components, but the code of conduct
amongst the society and religion also did not leave room for overindulgence, (Williams, et.
al., 2021 pg. 3). This is where I feel society struggles today and why addiction has become
such an issue. The article later talks about the way Westerners forced alcohol onto the people
of the island and I believe that was done to make it easier to overthrow the overall society,
but also create a wedge between the people and their way of life. That’s a whole other topic
in itself.
In conclusion, addiction is a rapidly growing issue that has many different roots. It is
happening at a time when people are looking for instant relief from the pains of their world.
The more they use the further away they get from being clean unless they are truly tired and
ready. Science has come so far that there are plenty of ways to treat addiction safely while
weaning the body from the drugs it is addicted to.
Williams, I. L., Makini, G. K., & Rezentes III, W. C. (2021). Indigenous Hawaiian
Psychoactive Drug Use: Before European Contact, and after 1778. Journal of Psychoactive
Drugs, 53(2), 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2020.1833114
khanacademymedicine. (2014, June 25). Psychoactive drugs: Stimulants | Processing the
environment | MCAT | Khan AcademyLinks to an external site.Links to an external site.
[Video]. YouTube. http://youtu.be/1Smz0zwAELQ
Smedley, R. L. (2015). Coping mechanisms as behavioral addictions. Addiction
Professional, 13(1), 42–43.
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