INTRODUCTIONCLASSIFICATION OF DRUGSin alphabetical order
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help >>> faq >>>What is a narcotic? Most misunderstandings in this world appear because people seldom specify what they have in mind, when using one word or term or another. The conception “narcotic” is indisputably among one of the most ill-defined ones and this vagueness makes their existence and part of the society difficult to understand. The original meaning of this word – substance, which causes narcosis, i.e. unconsciousness or lethargy, is almost out of use. A synonym of “narcotic” is the word “drug”; this old French word had once meant powdery medicines. Today, in pharmacology, the word “drug” is referred to every healing product of plant or animal origin, and in many European languages “drug” is just used for medicine. In order to clarify the conception “narcotic”, we should notice what kind of properties does it possess, according to the concept of the ordinary man. First these are substances, which exercise influence over the psyche; they affect our senses, perceptions, thoughts, memory, spirits, will and so on. The psychoactive means are rather different; that’s why it is necessary to establish a certain order. The simplest is to be gathered in groups, according to their chemical structure; this classification is synonymous, but sometimes it has a rather connection with what we are interested in – their effect. It is obvious that the street classification is not interested in the absent things as the mechanism of operation, but it classifies drugs, according to their most common subjective effects. We could apply it to the whole pharmacology; this is what it looks like:
Many of the psychoactive substances have medical use, but according to the commonly accepted opinion, drugs are used without medical necessity. Thus the conception “narcotic” is expanded almost to infinity because it includes every psychoactive substance, which we have been taken in, without being prescribed by some doctor. It is proved that even food composition, i.e. the choice of food products, has a noticeable influence over the psyche. These broad bounds are narrowed by the opinion that drugs are substances, which bring about dependency and therefore they are harmful. Practically we are born with a dependency on oxygen, water, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and so on, and during his further lifetime every person, more or less, builds up a dependence on thousands of other not so necessary substances – spices, perfumes, etc. Many of the psychoactive substances cause, undoubtedly, a serious dependency, which can be very strong (alcohol, opiates) and/or very fast (cocaine, opiates). Besides, there are many substances, thought to be drugs, on which no serious dependency is created – cannabis, hallucinogens; this dependency is weaker than the one, created on many other useless delights, without which our life would be dull and monotonous. It is obvious that the dependency is of any importance only as far as it causes substantial harmful effects to the dependent subject; on the other hand even substances, which do not create any dependency, can have their bad effects. As a whole drugs are harmful for personal and social health. Finally it is important to notice the popular expression drug abuse. The very word “abuse” has moralizing-police aspect – a man can take alcohol or tobacco, because it is legal and commonly excepted, but the one, who smokes cannabis, who eats “magical mushroom” or sniffs cocaine, is already an abuser. Drug usage can be defined as a use for pleasure or a non-medical use; this has a similar meaning as the expression recreational use.
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