Impact of Drug Abuse on Today's Society

Drug addiction and drug abuse are clearly negatively impacting today's society. It is not a secret that drugs kill brain cells and that addiction is hard to get rid of. Study after study has shown that drugs are addictive. There have been several studies done to address the drug abuse as well as addiction in the United States of America and how it affects those under the influence. There was a study done in which rats were given long periods of access to the drug is of great interest given its ability to model many symptoms of human substance use disorder. Adult male Sprague–Dawley rats received 5 minutes of access to a 0.15% saccharin solution followed by the opportunity to self-administer either saline or heroin for 3 hours (short access) or 6 hours (extended access). Following 16 to 18 pairings, terminal saccharin intake was used to categorize the rats into small or large suppressors and responding while the drug was examined accordingly. Whether the rats that most greatly avoid the heroin-paired taste cue would exhibit the greatest drug escalation over time, the greatest willingness to work for drug, and the greatest heroin-induced relapse. The Rats were used as the active participants and the amount of heroin was measured in taste cue when introduced to the rats. The procedure was when the saline and the heroin were added into the water.

This study resulted in only 5% of the short access rats reaching the criteria for large suppressors. This large suppressor didn’t differ from the small suppressors in the drug intake behavior. There was a 50% rate of the extended access saccharin-heroin rats who were largely dependent on the suppressors and they were the ones who showed the biggest escalation of drug intake. They also showed drug loading behavior, as well as the greatest relapse-symptomatic behaviors. The study concluded that the rats would avoid intake of a taste cue when paired with experimenter administered drugs of abuse including morphine, cocaine, ethanol, amphetamine, and heroin.

The second study on drug addiction, stressed the effect of stress induced changes in the motivation to take the drug. This study took Iranian drug abusers as well as people who have never used drugs in their life to take the addiction-Stroop test. The goal was to see if culture mattered in drug addiction. Participants included drug abusers, with a clinical with a clinical history of opium and heroin abuse, who were in a Methadone Maintenance Therapy program. Only non-abusers with a history of having never abused drugs or alcohol participated in the study as controls. The study resulted in drug abusers having a higher attentional bias for drug-related stimuli than non-abusers, after the effects of age and education had been controlled. The findings mean that the drug related attentional bias is culture-free, the studies limitation is that the majority of the testers were male.

The third study consisted of drug abuse treatment including the type of treatment and the length of different approaches. Over 10,000 clients were split up into different treatment centers to find the severity of what are the abused drugs and how they are abused. The present study included 10, 010 DATOS clients who had been interviewed from 1991 to 1993 and also clients who had been received treatment in 96 programs in 11 U.S. cities. The results consisted of regression analyses showed that a higher level of prior treatment use was associated with more severe addiction career characteristics, injection drug use, and criminal activities. The study findings portreated that if you were involved with crime or injection drug use that you would need more treatment and time to fight your addiction than those who were not involved in crime or injection drug use .

The fourth study tested whether rats being tested would go to the drug given to them, showing signs of addiction, or to their food. The present study used a within-subjects procedure, where male rats were given a choice between cocaine and food or between heroin and food in separate phases. The goal of the present study was to determine whether rats that prefer cocaine would also prefer heroin over there food. Rats were the participants and the measures were the cocaine and heroin distributed. Although 1 of the 16 rats demonstrated a preference for both cocaine and heroin to the food alternative, there was no relationship between degree of cocaine and heroin preference in individual rats. The substance-specific pattern of drug preference observed suggests that at least in this animal model, the tendencies to prefer cocaine or heroin in preference to a nondrug alternative are distinct behavioral phenomena.

The study findings mean that the rats were more likely to go to either addicting drug over the food given to them. The study limitations would be the low amount of mice used, as well as the type of food used.

Another study explored rates of lifetime behavioral health treatment utilization and factors associated with involvement in treatment. This study explored rates of lifetime behavioral health treatment utilization and factors associated with involvement in treatment. The goal was to see who was given treatment before as well as during their incarceration.

The study examined data from the Arrestee drug abuse Monitoring II program from 2007 to 2010, including over 18,000 arrestees in 10 U.S. metropolitan jails. Logistic regression and χ² analyses were used to explore the relationship between self-reported lifetime treatment history and sociodemographic characteristics as well as self-reported substance use, and severity of substance use. It resulted in finding the severity of alcohol and drug use was the highest among arrestees who had received both substance abuse and mental health treatment.

The study findings mean that the overall lack of behavioral health services and the need to engage offenders in mental and substance abuse treatment is not only lacking but detrimental to society. A measure to take would be to expand these services in jails, prisons, and programs.

Together all these articles show that addiction is very real and can happen to almost anybody. Addiction is more likely to pursue those that have criminal records and that other factors contribute to what causes abuse in someone as in stress. Each of the articles support each other and support the topic of drug addiction. They provide evidence of the causes and reasons for addiction as well as ways to prevent and help many abusers throughout the world. Some of the studies differ in ways of providing evidence of drug addiction and ways to show how drug addiction occurs and ways to fight against it. The studies build on top of each other by finding out different ways to show drug addiction is real and different ways you can be affected by it. Overall the findings suggest that drug addiction can happen to anyone and depending on the drug could increase your addiction and need of a rehabilitation treatment. Knowing these facts backed up by data can help educate those who do not know the truth about drugs and the effect that the addiction can have on people and or animals in society.