Past and current trends of the use and abuse of substances in the United States - Essay Example

Past and Current Trends of the Use and Abuse of Substances in the United s In the olden days when cars were running on wooden wheels and cartoons were just pictures made to run in quick succession to make them look like a movie, the thinkers and innovators of the world thought that the twenty first century would be an era of the future where there would be flying cars, robots and hotels in space. Sadly though, when we entered the twenty first century it was with the same old problems which have been with us since a very long time. There are no flying cars and no space stations. And the only robots we have now are ones which still have to be kept in a controlled environment because they are useless at even walking in a straight line, let alone doing your laundry. With issues like global warming and exhaustion of resources at their peak, one would imagine that the human being at least, would have evolved into a self conscious species becoming a fine example of the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the self actualization. Sadly here too, we have failed. This is because even though many people do care about these issues, there are bigger problems. And the biggest problem on mankind's shoulder is man himself. Where man has made tireless efforts to convert various raw resources into medicines and other chemicals to help each other in the time of need, there is a rather peculiar behavior observed in people for consuming these substances in large quantities without any apparent need for them. They have been addicted to them. Scientifically addiction is described as the use of a drug to such an extent that the patient starts to rely on it. It further says that the since the body of the patient tries to resist the negative effects of this drug on itself after a period of use, the patient increases his intake so that it overcomes his body's resistance and it can succumb to its effects once more. This particular issue is what is eating the world of today from the inside. This is the type of plague which keeps multiplying at an exponential rate. Every year, the rate of drug abuse, often used as a synonym for substance abuse, is increasing compared to the previous year. As it is difficult to see the whole world as an example of it and identify reasons which would suit all of it, we can take one example and discuss it. So let's take the world's most developed economy, the superpower, the land of opportunities and the biggest democracy in the world - The United States of America. Being such a developed country, one would imagine that citizens of the USA would be very well aware of the use and abuse of drugs. But this is a country which is facing one of its biggest fights trying to curb drug abuse. In 1999, NIDA (National Institute if Drug Abuse) reports that there were about 9 million Americans who were using prescription drugs for non medicinal purposes. Their normal excuse for doing this was that they thought it was safe to use this drug extensively because it was tried and tested and developed responsibly. This behavior is further given leverage when patients are so easily given a prescription of an anti depressant by doctors without proper tests and diagnosis which really are very simple like a urine test. Furthermore, the American culture really is getting into its stride of every small event causing a deep psychological effect on the person and so on. They never give the human body's natural abilities a chance to cope with any such event. More worryingly, there are also an increasing number of teenagers who are resorting to drug abuse. This type of drug abuse has nothing to do with prescription drugs though. These drugs are illegal substances smuggled into the country and sold under cover to needy and addicted Americans who think they cannot live without having this drug. Graduate and even pre-graduate students are looking for new ways to get their kicks. This culture is spreading like wildfire in America since all the perceived "cool" kids started consuming illegal substances to make themselves "enjoy their youth while they can". Fulfilling Maslow's hierarchy of needs most students are on the stage of social needs, which made them prime targets to join in to make themselves part of the "cool" crowd. The figures make for astonishing reading. Marijuana is being consumed by 14.8 million people, Cocaine is being consumed by 2.4 million people, Hallucinogens, including Ecstasy is being abused by 1 million people, Methamphetamine is being inhaled by 731,000 addicts and Prescription drugs are being misused by 7 million nonmedical users. Being such appalling rates in the population and such a lack of awareness, The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted some research to find out that what is actually influencing Americans to act so carelessly. The results of the research revealed shocking results. It is obvious that people addicted by drugs were indeed influenced by significant others in their lives and it came as not much of a surprise to why they were taking to drugs so easily. 55.7 percent got them free from a relative or friend. From all the drug abuse patients, medical or non medical, 19.1 percent got them from one doctor, 3.9 percent got them from a passerby, 0.1 percent bought them from a website on the Internet. So really, more than half the drug abuse is being encouraged by one's own family! It now gets even worse, if that were possible. This is because if these people were just taking drugs quietly and not affecting anyone else it would have been relatively easier to treat them and isolate their problems. But these drug abusers cause a massive impact on the society and the economy. It's reported by ONDCP that the economic loss in the economy because of drug abuse in 2002 was $ 180.9 billion. In addition to this, the drug abusers have subjected themselves to life threatening illnesses for example by using used syringes and transferring AIDS and other diseases intravenously. In 2004 over 3.5 million Americans aged 18 and above injected an illegal drug into their veins. This is just the tip of the iceberg because apart from contracting diseases from sharing instruments, drugs even cause cancer, liver cirrhosis, Hepatitis C and many other equally fatal diseases which are usually not curable and make the patient die a horrible and violent death in front of their grief stricken children, or, in many cases, parents. There is also a large number of people who commit suicide due to the over dosage of drugs leaving their family behind. The rate of suicides climbed 8% in 2004 in America. This has a huge social and psychological impact on the society. Citizens do not feel safe anymore because of the fact that their neighbor may be a massive drug abuser and might someday lash out at them for no apparent reason and cause fatal damage to him or to their family. Drugs and related crimes are another growing issue to be drawn attention to. To assess the wide impact of drugs and crime, let's look at some figures. In 1973 FBI arrested 328,670 criminals for drug law violations. In 2006 this number grew to a huge 1,889,810 criminals. Apart from these, there were other arrests made for violent crimes (611,523 criminals) and property crimes (1,540,297) making the whole figure a colossal 14,380,370 arrests made for all offences. Clearly something needs to be done to remove this deep routed evil in the American society completely before it takes away more sons from their fathers, and parents from innocent new born infants to make them orphans, or tears apart a loving marriage just because someone wasn't thinking before acting and completely destroy the peaceful society that we know today to become one of the worst plagues ever to storm the face of the earth. Article Questions 1) Define the problem outlined in the article The article is basically discussing and comparing various issues between alcoholic and non alcoholic families. It is being very thorough in its diagnosis and opinion because issues like roles and relationships, physical and emotional problems, demographics and solutions to the problem have been provided. In essence, an alcoholic family tends to be very unconnected within itself. There are very big gaps observed in perception and communication. This means that breaking up of such a family tends to be easier and has a higher probability. In contrast, non alcoholic families tend to be very strongly knit together and support for each other is very good. Communication is strong and support is also high. 2) Describe the issues related to the problem addressed by the article. The very first issue is about the study of family as an interacting unit. This states alcoholic families as being very uncooperative with itself as compared to non alcoholic families who cope very well with stresses and support each member with zest. The second issue discussed is family problems caused by alcoholism are of concern to nurses. This issue highlights the fact that not much work has been done on this particular topic and only in the last 15 years has this topic come into existence and since research on such a sensitive and demanding topic is very little, the nurses really are unsure how to handle certain cases in particular situations. This also puts nurses in a sticky situation since the research done is not organized properly either. The next issue discussed is alcohol as a family disease. This issue underlines the fact that 79% of the subjects accepted to being indulged to drink alcohol because of another family member. This is a serious casing point and proves how much influence an important person can bring about in one's life and how they can be the reason for its disruption as well. This case is especially true for children who started drinking by watching their parents. 3) Consider the implications of the article to employees, employers, and society. a) What are the ramifications if the problem is not addressed This is a serious problem which needs to be given vital attention to. Nurses should be able to able to gather enough data and predict behavior of alcoholic families so that something can be done. Clearly this is an issue which is affecting the whole of society. Substance abuse is on a rising rate in the whole world with abuse of alcohol being in the top most drugs to be abused. Families being subjected to this torture need help from the society and doctors and nurses to bring their life back to normal before it's too late. The very first implication is that nurse practitioners should be set up to make access to alcoholic families easier. The second implication stated in the article is while nursing education is good for most part, it is seriously lagging behind in dealing with alcoholics and alcoholic families. This makes everyone in the family and even the society more vulnerable to the risks posed by alcoholic families. The next implication discussed is to educate alcoholic families and those in contact with such families so that they can better respond to any given situation when they cannot find medical attention. This will also help alcoholics understand the importance of why they need to speed up their process of recovery and might even act as a motivating factor. The last implication discussed is about the broader society. Encouragement should be given to the population to acquire knowledge about this particular issue so that the billions of dollars being wasted in the economy of the country can be redeemed in the future when the society is rid of this plague. b) What are the tangible benefits of resolving the problem There is basically a whole load of problems linked to this issue which will be decreased by a very significant value if this issue is taken care of. For instance the increasing rate of substance abuse is costing the country billions of dollars in the economy. This could be then put to a more needed area like construction and development of schools and universities or public libraries. It could also mean a significant decrease in the unemployment and job harassment figures because alcoholics do not have full control over themselves at times. Decreasing these two figures will make the society a safer and more prosperous place to live in. it will give citizens more confidence in each other and good relations will be then promoted. 4) Describe and evaluate any solutions provided in the article. There is basically only one solution provided in the article which links to others. In essence it recommends that this nursing diagnosis should be validated and kept up to date and senior, more professional nurses should take responsibility for it. They should then give their views and opinions on how the new data is changing compared to the older data following which they should provide a recommendation on how to refine their techniques to increase the rate of effectiveness of their work. This sounds like a reasonable approach because there is not much data collected so far so the best practice is to learn as you go along and keep adding your experiences and findings to the existing data so future nurses can make their practices more effective. Works Cited 1. Deborah Cutter, Ellen Jaffe-Gill, Robert Segal and Jeanne Segal (2008) Drug Abuse and Addiction: Understanding the Signs, Symptoms, and Effects. Retrieved March 22, 2008, from web site http://www.helpguide.org/mental/drug_substance_abuse_addiction_signs_effects_treatment.htm 2. Glen R. Hanson, Peter J. Venturelli, Annette E. Fleckenstein (2005) Drugs and Society. Jones and Bartlett Publishers 3. Gabriel G. Nahas, Thomas F. Burks (1997) Drug Abuse in the Decade of the Brain. IOS Press 4. James A. Inciardi (1990) Handbook of Drug Control in the United States. Greenwood Publishing Group 5. National Drug Intelligence Center (2006) The Impact of Drugs on Society. Retrieved March 22, 2008, from web site http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs11/18862/impact.htm Read More