Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

June 21, 2011

Social and Economic Costs of the Alcohol Addiction

Filed under: Substance Abuse,Substance Abuse — Tags: — Winson @ 9:48 AM

If an individual is addicted to alcohol, there develops a compulsive need for alcohol in that individual. Generally alcohol is an intoxicating liquid and it is obtained from fermented grain or fruit. A person who is addicted to the alcohol experiences withdrawal symptoms like nausea, sweating, shakiness, or anxiety when alcohol consumption is stopped. Excess consumption of the alcohol imposes heavy costs on, both economy and the society.

  • Various estimates reports that the alcohol related problems cost American society and the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year.
  • According to an estimate by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alcohol addiction costed an estimated amount of $184.6 billion in 1998 to the U.S. economy. Researchers also found that the cost of alcoholism increased between 3 percent to 4 percent each year.
  • The Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog organization, estimated that the problems related to alcohol addiction costs American society more than $175 billion a year.
  • The same research also reported that the alcohol is abused largely by the teens who are between 12 to 17 years. Researchers also noted that alcohol addiction is the reason for the cause of thousands of deaths each year.
  • The different types of the costs caused by the alcohol addiction to the economy and the society include, medical costs, lost earnings related to alcohol related illnesses, lost earnings resulting from premature deaths and various costs arising from alcohol related traffic accidents and costs associated with criminal justice and litigation.
  • The World Health Organization, in a report, in the year 2004, on the global impact of alcohol use, concluded that the alcohol addiction causes serious health problems like cancers, cirrhosis of the liver, cardiovascular disease and severe brain diseases.
  • Along with these economic costs, alcohol addiction also causes social problems like damaging the family relationships, drunken driving and other criminal offenses.

The above are the various social and economic problems caused due to alcohol addiction.

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May 31, 2011

Use of Tobacco Among Americans in 2009

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: , — Winson @ 9:38 AM

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) includes use of tobacco products, including cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff, cigars, and pipe tobacco. Cigarette use is defined as smoking tobacco, whereas, chewing tobacco and snuff are combined as smokeless tobacco.

69.7 million Americans aged 12 or older were current users of a tobacco product in 2009 according to the survey. 58.7 million persons were current cigarette smokers, 13.3 million smoked cigars, 8.6 million used smokeless tobacco and 2.1 million smoked tobacco in pipes. The rate of current use of any tobacco product among persons aged 12 or older remained steady from 2008 to 2009.

Adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest rate of current use of a tobacco products in 2009 and the 35.8 percent of adults used cigarettes, 11.4 percent used cigars, 6.1 percent used smokeless tobacco, and 1.7 percent used pipe tobacco.

Among persons aged 12 or older, males are higher than the females who used tobacco. Males also had higher rates of past month use than females of each specific tobacco product which includes cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipe tobacco. Among youths aged 12 to 17, the rate of current cigarette smoking in 2009 was slightly higher for males than for females.

In 2009, current cigarette smoking was more common among unemployed adults aged 18 or older than among adults who were working full time or part time. Among adults aged 18 or older, current cigarette use in 2009 was reported by 35.4 percent of those who had not completed high school, 30.0 percent of high school graduates who did not attend college, 25.4 percent of persons with some college, and 13.1 percent of college graduates.

November 18, 2010

Facts about Drug Abuse and Addiction

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: — Winson @ 7:36 AM

Drugs are the chemicals, which have susceptible impact on neuro-chemical balance of human brain that effects feelings and actions of an individual. Abusing drugs often or regularly leads to addiction. Although there is no particular age limit for drug addiction, earlier abuse causes more serious drug addiction.

Reasons for addiction
Every abuser has a different reason for drug abuse or addiction. Mostly to escape from problems, people abuse drugs, and become addicted. Many factors influence the individuals like social environment, person’s biology, and age. Family, friends, life style of individual contribute to drug abuse. Critical stages of life along with genetic, and environmental factors also affect drug addiction susceptibility.

Effects of addiction
Complications of drug addiction are very high and it is like a disease that affects brain, and total functioning of the body. Brain’s communication system is affected with the chemicals present in drugs as they disrupt the process of information flow to nerve cells. Short and long term effects are seen in the abuse due to drug addiction.

  • Short term: The chemicals present in the drugs will blow into the brain’s communication system. These chemicals can disturb the functioning of the “reward circuit” of the brain. Many short-term consequences are observed in abuser’s health and avoiding drug abuse can help in overcoming the short-term consequences. Sleeplessness, irritability, anxiety, running nose, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, depression, headache, dizziness, effects on memory and respiratory problems etc are found with short term drug addiction.
  • Long term: Serious long-term effects are found with drug abuse and addiction changes brain chemical system and circuit. These effects can lead from mild itching to coma and to death of the drug abuser. This addiction facilitates the user in experiencing uncontrollable cravings particularly when they see place or person associated with drug. High drug addiction can lead for infectious diseases, breathing related diseases, veins, or nervous collapse, and abuser can even die in minutes in certain situations.

The above addressed information about reasons and effects of drug abuse and addiction can be useful in preventing drug abuse. Prevention programs and educating the people about effects can be helpful in preventing drug abuse and addiction in society. If it is not controlled at right time, these drugs can become masters of abuser’s life. The consequences of addiction of drug can be overwhelming to both the user and to the user’s family members.

Source: DrugAlcoholTest.com

October 13, 2010

Drug Abuse Increasingly Influencing Teens

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: , — Winson @ 8:17 AM

From so many years, thousands of American teens and some of their parents have been surveyed by National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse to learn about attitudes and factors by which the teens are influence to abuse drugs.

According to the report, 32 percent of the children who are aged 12 to 13 years, kept or sold drugs in schools and it was 23 percent in the last year. It may increase to 39 percent in future. Teens who are 11 and 13 years old are 33 times more likely to use tobacco and around 3 times more likely to have tried alcohol. 10 percent of teens use marijuana in drug infested schools.

According to the report, the percentage of older teens increases from nearly 51 percentage to 66 percentage in drug infested high schools. According to the findings, children are kept in the place where illicit drugs are common, so they are surrendered by them and they become addicted to drugs. So, it should be prevented. If any child crosses the age 21 years with out smoking, using illicit drugs or abusing alcohol and over use of prescription medicine then he or she never takes them in their life. But, there is difficult to find such type of children.

According to the survey, there are gangs who are associated with drug abuse in schools. Drug abuse can start in schools. Around 60 percent of the schools are drug infested with these gangs.

So, United States is facing the threat of the teen drug abuse problem. There is a significant increase in number of the teen abusers.

July 14, 2010

Common Side Effects of Marijuana

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: , , — Winson @ 9:14 AM

Marijuana is one of the illegal drugs in United states, it is also the most commonly abused drug. THC is the one of the dangerous chemical in Marijuana drug. It is dry, shredded green and brown mix flowers, stems, seeds, and leaves taken from the hemp plant.

Marijuana causes many side effects on the users, and some of the common side effects of using Marijuana are trouble in remembering things, user can feel sleepiness, anxiety, paranoia, it alters time perception. These symptoms vary depending upon the person’s health. Suppose if a person who has history of mental or health problems then it is better to not to take the drugs, it will worsen both his or her body and mind.

Using marijuana effects the body and brain of the user, marijuana side effects can be as innocent as increased appetite to lung cancer. It causes accidents, so it is also one of the side effects. Other physical side effects are dry mouth, headache, nausea, tremor, increased heart rate, decreased coordination, altered body temperature, increased food consumption, reduced blood flow to brain, breathing problems, changes in reproductive organs.

There are few side effects on brain like anxiety and panic, paranoia, confusion, aggressiveness, hallucinations, sedation, depersonalization, poor sense of time, worsened short-term memory, addictive behaviors, slowed reaction time, red, blood shot eyes, difficulty in concentrating.

Long time use of marijuana can make a person loose interest in school, work, relationships and other activities and not only these, it also causes some legal problems. Driving under the influence of Marijuana is very dangerous because it impairs your reaction time. So it leads you to dangerous conditions.

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