use and the effects of drugs

use and the effects of drugs

Drugs and Society

The use and the effects of drugs have been significant concerns in the current world when it comes to matters of medication. It is believed that people abuse drugs or even take drugs out of addiction or also to ensure that they feel good and be in a state where they able to proceed with their activities. Prescription is an order written by a doctor where a patient is directed on how to particular drugs, a process called prescription medication.

In his book “Drugs, Society and Human Behavior,” Carl Hart is more concerned about drug use and the effects resulting from the use of the society and the individual. However, there is much concern about the issue of legalizing prescription medication and alcohol. According to his statement, Carl seems to support the legalization of prescription medications and alcohol. He believes that the drugs posses less danger to their children and the community at large than do the adulterants used to cut drugs by people.  He gives an example of street cocaine that is cut using an animal’s dewormer called levamisole, which is believed to reduce the number of blood cells and thus increases the chances of getting infections. Most people take alcohol for recreation purposes, and therefore Carl supports its legalization.

Alcohol has been the commonly used drug even from the past. However, some regulations have been in place to control the harmful use of alcohol. Those persons below the recommended age and any other vulnerable and high-risk people are not allowed to access alcoholic substances. The regulation is available via laws, policies, and programs and depends on locals circumstances such as economic, social, and cultural contexts, and also bidding international obligations existing. In the regulation of alcohol, policies have been introduced to reduce and do away with illicit products and control informal alcohol. The regulation policies include regulating the number of alcohol outlets, days and hours, mode of retail sales, and retail sales in certain events or places.

Both alcohol and prescribed drugs are controlled to avoid overdose and abuse. The issue of a prescription drug overdose and abuse is caused by several factors such as insufficient oversight to control poor prescribing and the belief that prescribed drugs are safe, which is associated with excess use.  Most prescribed drugs are bought for treatment and are regulated by the government. The government controls the prices and probably the quantities of the medicines in more than half of the market. Regulations enforcing the Controlled Substance Act suggest a legal, medical reason for prescriptions, the practitioner has to act in their ordinary course of practice, and a pharmacist fills a prescription legally.

Goldacre put it clearly in his talk that the issue of missing data from past years has facilitated to the challenges that are observed in the preceding years in availing important information to doctors. Physicians indeed need clinical trials to make informed decisions with their patients on what treatment to administer. However, it was noticed that almost half of the clinical trials had not been published for several years from all fields of medicine. It means that the doctors cannot make any informed decisions when some relevant evidence is lacking.

It has been a problem that has existed for a couple of years and where the issue was kept away from the public discussion with some trials with negative results.  The other obstacle in the provision of information to doctors is the fear of releasing a patient’s clinical data, which leads to the breaching of the patient’s confidentiality. Also, there was the claim that the sharing of the patient’s clinical information is prohibitive. All these claims act as barriers to prevent essential information about clinical trials being made available to physicians. The great mistake is the assumption that this issue has been solved, yet nothing has been done. It would act as a barrier in informing doctors since there is some important information missing. Therefore, the clinical trials of the past years are essential in making informed decisions and thus make the right prescribed treatments, just a matter of making sure that medicine is effective and safe.

It is of great importance if doctors are provided with information that would enable them to make decisions on the treatments to administer. I would recommend that policy to be established to allow for doctors to be authorized to access the clinical information of patients so that they are enabled to make the right decisions. Through this, the doctors will know what drugs to use in administering treatment to patients. Secondly, clinical trials must be published so that they can provide evidence for future reference.

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