How Dangerous Really Are Drugs?

All drugs are potentially dangerous. A drug is any substance that by its chemical nature alters the structure or function of a living organism. It is this "altering" effect that constitutes a definite danger.

The drugs here being discussed are substances that have some effect on the mood, perception and consciousness. According to this definition, a number of things in common use, such as coffee, some tea, cola drinks and alcoholic beverages, although not thought of as drugs in themselves, actually do contain drugs. The drug in the first three is caffeine and, obviously, in the latter is ethyl alcohol. Moderate use of these drinks is not harmful, and may even possess some nutritional or health value.

But the use of drugs can cause serious problems. The accompanying chart shows what some of these are.

Of course, some drugs are used for healing purposes, or to reduce pain due to illness or surgery. Are there abuses in such medical use of drugs? Certainly. For example, not only is there the overmedication that results from the indiscriminate prescribing of tranquilizers and antibiotics by some doctors, but there is also the overuse by individuals of nonprescription drugs such as aspirin and sleeping pills. And that, too, is harmful and dangerous.

Generally, however, the use of drugs in medicine is not the same as drug use by individuals where the purpose and motivation are very different. The results to the recipient are also usually very different.

Just look at what happens to those who abuse drugs for whatever reason. Note carefully what even short-term abuse will bring about. Ask yourself, Are not the dangers to health and life real ones? Consider just a few examples:

AMPHETAMINES: Short-term use results in reduced appetite, increased heart rate and raised blood pressure. Long-term, heavier doses result in restlessness, irritation, malnutrition, increased susceptibility to infections, high blood pressure, a sense of power and superiority, unusual delusions and hallucinations, paranoia, and so forth. Not a pretty list, is it?

BARBITURATES: Short-term effects are slurred speech, staggering, a "high" feeling, and, in large doses, unconsciousness and fatal depression of the respiratory system. Harmless?

COCAINE: Short-term effects are much like those from amphetamines. Long-term, heavier doses bring on bizarre, erratic and violent behavior, paranoid psychosis, and sometimes an irresistible and maddening sensation that something is crawling under the skin.

OPIUM, HEROIN AND CODEINE (the latter used in many cough medicines found in drugstores): Short-term effects of opiates like these include a state of "contentment," detachment, nausea and vomiting. An acute overdose adversely affects the respiratory function, with danger of death. Does nonmedical use of these sound safe to you?

TRANQUILIZERS: Adverse effects are reduced alertness, slurred speech, dizziness, depression, possible impairment of muscle coordination, urinary retention, low blood pressure, and so forth.

LSD: Effects are usually rapid pulse, distortion of perception, anxiety or panic, feelings of unusual power or importance.

PCP: Effects noted often are shallow respiration, increased blood pressure, muscular incoordination, numbness of the extremities. With larger doses: nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, loss of balance, delusions, confusion, hallucinations, coma, uncontrollable rage, suicidal and homicidal tendencies, death.

Frightening? Yes, and yet the list is by no means complete. Under the influence of these drugs people often lose their lives. In the book Mind Drugs, there is related the account of one young girl who, after taking LSD, jumped to her death on a rocky beach because the ocean below appeared to her as a silky scarf. Then there were the youths who wanted to 'become one' with the traffic on a busy thoroughfare. And there was the student who had to be restrained from leaping from an apartment window because he wanted to use his new ability to fly. Long is the list that tells of those who committed suicide or perpetrated terrible crimes after using PCP or LSD.