The Anatomy of Addiction by MD Akikur Mohammad Read Free Book Online

combined is less than 1 percent. By comparison, over 18 percent is caused by tobacco. More people die every year from legal drugs, legally prescribed, than all illegal drugs combined.
    Fact: While often characterized as a drug of the black community, 60 percent of individuals who have used crack in the last month are white. White crack users also account for 66 percent of individuals who have ever used crack in their lifetime. Simply stated, the majority of crack users are white.
    Despite this reality, 80 percent of people arrested for crack offenses are black. Consequently, a disproportionate number of black crack offenders face the harsh mandatory minimums associated with crack convictions.
    Finally, crack is perceived as instigating violent behavior while cocaine gets a pass. Yet, research has shown that crack usedoes not result in violent behavior. The violence one associates with crack is not from the effects of the drug, but rather the violence between rival criminal organizations and/or law enforcement.
    Like crack and cocaine, meth is perceived as a drug with no redeeming value. That’s true. About a hundred years ago the same argument was used to ban and criminalize the use of alcohol. What is
not
true is that meth is on the rise and meth users are harder to treat than, say, alcoholics.
    Meth use in the United States peaked at least two decades ago and has slightly declined or stayed about the same. Addiction to methamphetamine is not much different from that of any other drug addiction except tobacco, which is the most addicting and the most difficult to quit. When it comes to successful treatment, it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about meth or heroin or alcohol.
    Just as the vast majority of drinkers are not alcoholics, the majority of stimulant users (like meth heads) are not addicts. They stop on their own or with help from family and friends. There is that small minority of those who actually have the disease of addiction and require true medical treatment. These are the people with whom I am concerned.
    â€œMeth is a real problem for some people, but it is an over-hyped problem. All you have to do is look at the use rates and look at sentencing,” said Jason Ziedenderg, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute. “When 100,000 people a year die from alcohol, I’m still saying that’s the most dangerous drug in America.”
    5.People Addicted to One Drug Are Addicted to All of Them
    It is not true that a person who is addicted to one drug is addicted to all drugs. The drug to which someone becomes addicted corresponds to that individual’s particular brain chemistry. Most alcoholics are not meth heads, most heroin junkies don’t regularly use meth, and so on. Now, when the preferred drug of choice is scarce (meaning, expensive) or not available at all, addicts will turn to another drug. Read on.
    6.Prescription Pills Are Safer Than Illegal Street Drugs Because They’ve Been Prescribed by a Doctor
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released some startling facts about drug use and deaths in the United States.
    â€¢In 2013, of the 43,982 drug overdose deaths in the United States, 22,767 (51.8 percent) were related to pharmaceuticals, notably opioid analgesics (also called prescription painkillers), stimulants, and tranquilizers.
    â€¢In 2011, about 1.4 million emergency room (ER) visits involved the nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals. Among those ER visits, 501,207 were related to antianxiety and insomnia medications, and 420,040 were related to opioid analgesics.
    â€¢The drug overdose death rate has more than doubledfrom 1999—about the same time that doctors dramatically increased the prescribing of painkillers—through 2013.
    â€¢In 2013, more than 17,000 people died from prescription painkiller overdoses, with more than 400,000 going to an emergency room.
    The CDC called the prescription painkiller epidemic that