Drug Issue And Substance Abuse - How To Fight Them

By Solomon Mathew


Drug issues have greatly influenced the modern society in a negative way, more than it did in the past decades. This can be blamed on modernization, and how the advancements are growing by leaps and bounds and on a global scale. Hence, drugs too have taken a turn for the worse. They may have too little drugs on hand. However, they have developed ingenious ways to milk the drugs for all their worth when it comes to the high they will derive for using them. There is no escaping the fact that substance abuse is now deeply and fully imbedded in our current culture and society.

Despite the fact that society knows how bad this vice is, very little is done to actually deal with it and kick it into oblivion. Substance abuse's most notable end-products are addiction and death. Alcohol, for one, has earned worldwide recognition, thanks to the many product and brand variations. Yet, the drug has managed to bring many into bondage of abuse it, making them take alcohol like prescription drugs - three times a day. Abuse of alcohol, otherwise known as alcoholism, has now become a social problem. But if you look at the law, there are no preventive parameters put into place. In fact, you can only see the hand of the law at work after the fact, when an accident has happened or an improper public display has already been exhibited.

When we speak of society's battle against substance abuse, however, the main subject that comes to mind is the use of hard-core drugs. The drug trade is quite a lucrative enterprise, its unlawfulness notwithstanding across the globe. The fact that a small dose of these drugs can cost so much does not stop the drug users and abusers from doing all they can just to purchase them. Cocaine, heroin, and meth are only a few of the substances that are most abused nowadays.

Billion dollar companies produce some of the substances that will be in the market on a large scale. Take nicotine, for example, which is an addictive substance found in cigarettes. Aside from meddling with the users' mental state, the nicotine-tinged smoke can also result to the user contracting cancer. Tobacco smoking has been prohibited in a number of countries, and they do this by prohibiting its sale and distribution. Others are even proposing that the laws governing the smoking of marijuana should also be applied in the same manner (and weight) to cigarettes.

It's not, however, the drug peddlers or distributers and the end-users of the drugs who are being directly addressed in this fight against substance abuse. The fight is towards the big fish who manufacture these drugs. But all those efforts are always stonewalled and getting little headway because these big fish have friends or connections who are among the authorities who are supposed to be the one enforcing it. Hence, activist and social movements that campaign against the social vice of drug abuse have adopted a new approach. Their method now involves making more and more people become aware of how drug use and abuse will be impacting the individuals and society as a whole.




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