Effect of overpopulation on drug addiction and addiction
We live in a drug culture, from the morning when we take caffeine during breakfast, until night, in which we can relax when returning to the house, with an alcoholic snack, or a sleep inductor prescribed by the doctor. We have accustomed to use different substances, which act on the central nervous system, to face the day to day. Many also activate as the day, aspiring nicotine. Even when drugs have been present in all cultures and at all times, however, there are more people who consume drugs because they have more substances (legal and illegal), more potential buyers before the population increaseunprecedented and more facilities to achieve them for the introduction of technological advances to drug trafficking. More population implies more competition and shortage. In fact, confusion and absence of meaning in the modern world are the true roots of drug addiction. Can it be affirmed that it is a phenomenon of the twentieth and twenty -first century, since the perfect breeding ground in our society finds?
After decades of study, a wide range of risk factors associated with the problem of drug use, which can be classified, according to their proximity to the individual and their environment, in individual, microsocial and macrosocial factors are recognized. The macrosocial risk factors include those related to the broader social environment, in which the individual develops and that make up an important influence on the development of disorders such as drug use. Some of these factors are related to demographic and geographical variables that somehow affect well -being levels. Current analysts indicate that the social changes that occurred in recent years, derived from variations in the dynamics and composition of the population’s demographic structure, as well as the recurring economic crises and an accelerated social and cultural openness in the face of the process of modernization and globalization,They have significantly affected people’s lives in family and social fields, generating various health problems among which is the use of substances (Medina-Mora et al., 2013).
Some 275 million people worldwide, about 5.6% of the world’s population, consumed drugs at least one occasion in 2016. Some 31 million people who consume drugs suffer from disorders derived from it. These are the first two data that highlights the most recent World Drug Report of the United Nations Office against Drug and Crime (UNUD) and that come to ratify the overflow of a problem that, according to the last background,ended with the life of 450.000 people in 2015, of which 167.750 are mainly associated with overdose. The reports of the report, in addition to graphing the expansion of drug markets beyond its usual regions, reveal a series of calamitous records: the increase to unprecedented levels of opium production: 65% in 2017 compared to the previous year, reaching 10.500 tons;Cocaine manufacturing worldwide in 2016: 1.410 tons, and the amount of heroine seized throughout the planet: 91 tons that same year. To all those background, the uncontrolled increase in deaths from opioid addiction, responsible for 76% of human losses due to drug use,. The most important impact has been recorded in North America, where the fentanyl obtained illegally, mixed with heroin and other drugs, has become the main cause of overdose deaths. Only in the United States, a country in which the greatest health crisis has been unleashed throughout its history due to opioids – the deaths reached almost 63.632, the highest figure than is recorded. The problem, however, begins to expand to other latitudes such as Europe, Africa and the Middle East, where the consumption of tramadol, without medical purposes, especially in the most vulnerable populations, begins to be a reason for concern. But, it is not because of its effects that the drug is consumed. In the end, addiction is caused by a feeling of isolation and disconnection in the addict, not by drugs themselves.
Addiction, in other words, is adaptation to your fear. If this disapproves of connections and meaning, you are more likely to get addicted. I think it would be far to say that it is only a phenomenon of the twentieth or twenty -first century. There have been periods in the past where people felt isolated and addiction rebounded: for example, in 18th -century England, when large amounts of people left their land and were forced to live in horrible urban suburbs. A large percentage of these people ended up drinking a lot. Overpopulation affects, but does not determine.
Addictions affect the individual, family and society as a whole, both for their direct and indirect effects. Examples of direct effects are car accidents or any other type, violence and family separation, costs in the areas of justice, health, insurance, etc., that as a whole are high. The indirect effects are the economic losses that are produced by absenteeism to work, the loss of the possibility of study of children and the individual, unemployment, disease, disability and loss of fiscal income, which are assumed byThe family and society. The most drastic effects are the premature death of the affected individual or that of a co -dependent (family). The average life of a person with addiction disease is substantially reduced, for example in alcoholism it is reduced by 8 years. Another interesting fact is the average incapacitated life, which is 12 years, due to disability and/or absenteeism diseases. More than 95% of addictions are suffered by work active;For example, in the case of alcoholism, 96% of alcoholics abuse liquor usually only on weekends and only 3% abuse the liquor every day. The data also suggest a rapid increase in drug use in individuals over 40 years compared to the youngest. Despite this, drug dependence treatments for this age group remain very scarce in the world. A situation similar to what women who suffer from problematic uses or dependence on psycho -substances live, since only one in five women receives treatment. Addiction disease is treatable as well as other chronic diseases such as diabetes, asthma and hypertension that are similar in its origins as in its susceptibility (behaviors and genetic susceptibility) as they are also similar in the cost effectiveness of treatments. Treated patients achieve considerable improvement in health, social, family and economic, aspects usually committed by this disease.
In current western society, the consumption of a drug can be used to fill out the lack of affection or can be used to temporarily flee negative emotions (frustration or sadness) caused by the difficulties of adapting to a demanding society. The religious or spiritual end that the human being sought in the consumption of these substances in their beginnings has been lost in many cases. Drugs are just part of the problem. In fact, the arbitrariness with which society judges as acceptable or not the use of a drug has no direct relationship with its addictive potential or with the physical damage that it can produce. Without a doubt, it is necessary to educate the risks and benefits that can be obtained from the natural or chemical substances that are within our reach. We must especially educate the most vulnerable populations, in which the consumption of certain drugs can be particularly dangerous, such as adolescents, pregnant women or people at risk of psychiatric diseases (depression, anxiety). We must assume that the social climate, the lack of values, education and the demands imposed on young people are elements that favor drug use to escape everyday circumstances. If we admit this reality, we can face the problem from another perspective, preventing and educating.
The addict uses drugs to treat with the psychological pain that was already there before the drugs found. It has nothing to do with physical dependence, it is an internal agony. Sometimes physical dependence and addiction overlap in the same person, obviously, but they are different things. That is why the places where they punish addicts to stop only worsen things, while places like Portugal, where they respond to addicts with love and support have seen the use of injective drugs in 50%. Of course, there are forces that benefit from the state of things. The largest is, from afar, organized crime, but also the prison industry, certain parts of the police, and others. For 100 years, the world has used an approach based on fear, stigma and hatred, and has failed, even despite having spent a billion dollars and countless lives. Drug addiction is not a matter of numbers, it is time to replace ideology with science.
Bibliographic references
- Carlos Alcívar Trejo, Juan T. Calderón Cisneros and Néstor Joao Jácome Vera (2015): “The use of
- Drugs affect society or "contribute to tourism"? And their risks in young people and adolescents ”, Journal Contributions to Social Sciences, N. 27 (January-March 2015). Online: http: // www.Eumed.NET/REV/CCCSS/2015/01/Drugs.HTML
- United Nations Office. (2019) World Drug Report 2018. Accessible at: https: // www.UNODC.org/wdr2018/prelaunch/wdr18_exsum_spanish.PDF consulted on September 12, 2019
- McKenna t. The delicacy of the gods: the search for the tree of science of good and evil. A history of plants, drugs and human evolution. Poidós Editorial;2004.
- Ruiz Loyola Benjamin, how do you see? Drugs, Col. As you see?, Nope. 3, UNAM, Mexico, 2012
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