Nature of Post-War Drug Use - Essay Example

Critically analyse the patterns and nature of post-war drug use. How can we account for the changes in levels of drug use Introduction: A common definition of the word 'drug' is any substance that in small amounts would produce significant changes in the mind, body, or both. What is not highlighted here is that most which are termed as drugs are psychoactive substances in that they affect mood, perception, and thought. Drug use is universal. Every human culture in every age has ended up using one or more psychoactive drugs. Drug taking is so common that it seems to be a basic human activity. Drug taking is so common that it seems to be a basic human activity, and society must come to terms with the human fascination for drugs. Attitudes about which drugs are good or bad tend to change over time within a given culture. The debate over marijuana is mostly a conflict between an older generation that viewed the drug as evil and a younger generation that found it preferable to alcohol. Because psychoactive drugs can give pleasure and can change the ways people think, perceive the world, behave, and relate to each other, they invite magical thinking and taboos (Ball, Graff, and Chien, 1975, 109-113). It seems human beings are born with need for periodic variations in consciousness. Drugs are fascinating because they alter consciousness. The basic reason people consume drugs is to vary their conscious experience. Many drug users talk about getting high. Highs are states of consciousness marked by feelings of euphoria, lightness, self-transcendence, concentration, and energy. Drugs that affect the central nervous system (CNS) can be classified by the substance from which they are derived, such as opiates or opioids, or by their effects on the human nervous system, such as stimulants, hallucinogenic drugs, or psychotropic drugs (Ames, Franken, & Coronges, 2006, 363-368). Around the world, approximately 15% of the population older than 18 years of age is considered to have serious drug use problems. This number of course include those other than nicotine addiction, which itself may involve up to 25% of the world's population, and this percentage has remained fairly constant since the early 1980s. Of these drug abusers, about two-thirds abuse alcohol and one-third abuse other drugs. Across the continents, the other major drugs of abuse are marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin. Approximately 2.5% of the world's population abuse marijuana, 0.5% abuse stimulants, 0.3% abuse cocaine or opioids, and up to 1.7% abuse other drugs, such as., inhalants, depressants, hallucinogens. Many individuals who try illicit drugs do not go on to abuse them. As an example, approximately 33%of the populations of the United States and Australia, and 10% to 20% of the population of different European countries, report lifetime use of marijuana. Yet, only 2.5% of the world's population use marijuana so regularly as to incur recognizable consequences (Adams, Gfoerer, & Rouse, 1989, 14-20). The last three decades of the nineteenth century saw far-reaching transformations in the life of the Western world. In the postwar era, the observable fact was the great expansion of population in the Western countries including Europe and America. With immigration from all parts of the World, the population expanded greatly and became heterogeneous in speech, religion, and way of life. Many of the immigrants, unprepared to join the agricultural sector of the economy, crowded into the growing cities, which soon began to exhibit today's familiar urban problems. With the industrial revolution, large enterprises grew and attained a new level of economic power; with the construction of the railroads, vast areas of the West were opened for settlement and exploitation of the timber and mineral resources. In social terms, the geographic dispersal of the population that occurred as many moved west spelled the end of the once close-knit family. The variety of social ills that inevitably attended these rapid changes in all aspects of life gave rise to a spirit of reform that ran through the native culture from the mid-nineteenth century to 1920 ( Pearson, 1999, 477-487). This reformist or progressive impulse stemmed largely from the fear of social disorder among the same middle- and upper-class citizens whose political and economic power was increasingly insecure. Rapid transformation seemed to threaten the heart of the lives of the originals. While most reforms of the Progressive Era between 1890 and 1917 were aimed at curing the disorder itself, some movements naturally responded to specific evils that seemed to result from the upheaval. Increasingly, crime and immorality were blamed on easily obtained narcotics and alcohol. This goal of moral uplift of the underprivileged was shared by Progressive Era temperance activists, political reformers, and crusaders against the indiscriminate use of psychoactive substances such as opium and cocaine (Parker, Williams, and Aldridge, 2002, 941-964). Alcohol had been the object of recurrent prohibition crusades in the nineteenth century, and as the Progressive Era developed, some sociologists began to speculate that alcohol abuse was actually the result, rather than the cause, of poverty. However, alcohol seemed to exacerbate almost all the evils of a disorderly society. Even if it could not be wholly blamed for economic failure, it certainly did not help. Alcohol lowered efficiency and productivity and, in the eyes of the reformers, increased all the evils of the urban scene: prostitutes worked in and around saloons; alcohol apparently made men more susceptible to the influence of corrupt city bosses; and it broke up families and invited violence. It reduced the chances for freedom, prosperity, and happiness and did not contribute to the virtue and enlightened character of an electorate needed by a democracy (Almog, Anglin, & Fisher, 1993, 291-338). In 1918, the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was passed, which outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages, other than as prescribed as a medication by a physician using specific forms. States ratified the amendment a year later, and alcohol marketing became illegal in the United States until 1935, when the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment. Interestingly, overall ethanol use decreased from an average of about 2 gallons of ethanol per year among persons of drinking age (1850-1919) to about 1 gallon (in 1934). In 1942, use was back up to 2 gallons and in 1969 and thereafter increased to an average of 2.5 gallons (Beecher, 2002, 44-86). By the end of the nineteenth century, the narcotics problem was also worrying reform-minded legislators, health professionals, and the laity. Opium in its crude form had been imported into North America from the time of the earliest European settlements. Various medicines were made from it. Alcohol extracts of crude opium included laudanum and paregoric, and opium was mixed with other drugs in patent medicines, among the most popular of which was Dover's Powder, originating in England in the eighteenth century. American statistics on opium imports were not kept until the 1840s, but from that time on, domestic consumption rose rapidly until the mid-1890s (Ames et al., 2007, 204-218) Statistics for the pre-World War I period provide good evidence that a steady increase of opium use in the United States occurred in the nineteenth century and that when the twentieth century began, there was already a substantial consumption of the drug for medicinal and nonmedicinal purposes. Several major technologic and chemical advances made the most powerful ingredients in opium available in pure, cheap form. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, morphine was isolated from opium, and by 1832, American pharmaceutical manufacturers were preparing morphine from imported crude opium. Codeine was isolated in 1832, and this less-addicting substance became a common form of manufactured derivative, particularly after morphine and heroin were severely restricted in the United States after World War I. Heroin, a trade name of the Bayer Company for diacetylmorphine, was introduced commercially in 1898, with the hope that acetylation of the morphine molecule would reduce its side effects while maintaining its effectiveness in suppressing the cough reflex. A similar hope was entertained the next year for acetylation of salicylic acid, a mild analgesic with undesirable side effects, which was then marketed as Aspirin, the Bayer trademark for sodium acetylsalicylic acid. Heroin, of course, proved to be at least as addictive as morphine and eventually ousted morphine as the drug of choice among habitual drug users. The increasing use of heroin in this period is an example of the effectiveness of three innovations adopted by nineteenth-century industrial enterprises: manufacturing, rapid distribution, and effective marketing techniques (Terry and Pellens, 1928, 929-937). Coca leaves, in their indigenous growth areas in South America, were known to have stimulant properties and had been used for centuries by natives. Coca's unusual properties were popularized in Europe and America in the mid-nineteenth century, and an alcohol extract of the leaves, which contained some of the active stimulant cocaine, often appeared under the name wine of coca. In the 1880s, pure cocaine became more easily available because of advances in manufacturing technology, and it was immediately praised, especially in the United States. Its stimulating and euphoric properties were touted for athletes, workers, and students, and bottlers of popular soda drinks, and easily obtained tonics added cocaine to obtain a stimulant effect. Medical uses were soon discovered, and worldwide experimentation established cocaine as an anesthetic for the surface of the eye and as a block to pain stimuli when injected near a nerve. The stimulant properties were bothersome side effects of cocaine when used as an anesthetic, but within a few decades, satisfactory substitutes were developed that were considered less habituating, such as procaine in 1905. Cocaine was also convenient for shrinking nasal and sinus membranes, and it became one of the early effective remedies for hay fever (Hikida et al., 2003, 6169-6173). McC Miller and Plant in their study about drinking, smoking, and illicit drug use among 15 and 16 years olds in the United Kingdom examined the patterns of self-reported drinking, smoking, and illicit drug use through a cross-sectional single-phase survey. Recent evidence suggests that illicit drug use in this age group is increasing steadily not only in the United Kingdom, also in the other countries. Whereas, the number of people who drink heavily and smoke is decreasing, few interesting facts came out of this study. More than 40% of the subjects in this study had tried illicit drugs at some time, mainly cannabis. The numbers indicate a sharp increase over the past 5 years (McC Miller and Plant, 1996, 394-397). Fisher and Strantz used an ecosystem approach to the study of dangerous drug use and abuse with special reference to Marijuana. Cannabis generally is smoked, though it can be taken orally, and it can produce a sense of well-being and relaxation, loss of temporal awareness, and impairment of short-term memory. Cannabis also can produce anxiety, paranoia, and a sense of derealization. Effects for a single dose may last around 5 hours. The lethal to effective dose is 1,000:1, although lung damage, accidents, and short-term memory problems are documented consequences of use. Marijuana occurs in leaf and resin forms, and a synthetic form marinol, which is used as an oral pill as a clinical adjunct for glaucoma and cancer. Activation of cannabinoid receptors involving the endogenous neurotransmitter, anandamide, or THC inhibits release of GABA by blocking its inhibition effects and partially facilitates release of glutamate (excitatory effects), involving the frontal cortex, hippocampus, cerebellum, and basal ganglia, among other structures (Tims et al., 2002, 46-57). In addition, its neurotransmission interacts with dopaminergic and opioid neurotransmitters, facilitating their transmission. Cannabis is the most prevalent illegal drug used around the world (Fisher and Strantz, 1972, 1406-1414). The total number of drug users in the world is now estimated at some 200 million people, equivalent to about 5 per cent of the global population age 15-64. Cannabis remains by far the most widely used drug with some 162 million people using it, followed by amphetamine-type stimulants which include amphetamines and ecstasy. The number of opiate abusers is estimated at some 16 million people, of which 11 million are heroin abusers. Some 13 million people are cocaine users (Tims et al., 2002, 46-57). Whatever may be the drug of abuse, for any one individual, there exists a set of complex of variables that are interrelated relative to his drug use. Use or abuse of any specific drug by a population would, therefore, depend on the individual's evaluation of his drug use in the context of these variables. Thus drug use or abuse is part of a very complex psycho-ecological system. The social and economic system, the values and belief system, the social circle system, the availability of the drug, the development of a conducive attitude towards drug use, all may play important roles in favour of drug use. Thus the question arises whether war had any effect on the people's overall life experiences that would have supported a conducive socioecological system that could alter the drug-related behaviour of the people (Fisher, 1968, 40-54). To know the differences between the drug behaviours, Johnson and Gerstein conducted a seminal study where they wanted to know how often and how early individuals start to consume drugs. They conducted a study since 1919, and the participants, therefore, belonged to both prewar and postwar categories. This study was useful in tracking the effects of prevention strategies, explaining the life cycle patterns of drug use, and predicting drug problems. To answer the questions in this assignment, the findings from this study are very important. The authors have supported their hypothesis from relevant literature in that age of initiation of alcohol, cigarette, and illicit drug use is a powerful predictor of consequences of drug use and related dependence. Studies have demonstrated that adolescents who begin drug use at early ages are more frequent drug users, escalate to higher levels more rapidly, and are less likely to stop using drugs (Johnson and Gerstein, 1998, 27-33). There is a recent resurgence of studies and researches related to patterns and trends in drug use. The authors report that individuals born before and after World War II differed dramatically in the range and extent of their drug use. The extracted data from this study is very interesting in that during 1930-1940, only 1% of the population used only 3 drugs before age 35, with 84% alcohol, 78% cigarettes, and 6% marijuana. In the 1951-1955, 10 drugs were used by more than 5% before age 35. These are alcohol (92%), cigarettes (77%), marijuana (50%), cocaine (19%), hallucinogens (16%), inhalants (6%), stimulants (12%), analgesics (8%), tranquilizers (7%), and sedatives (7%). The percentage using heroin also increased, from about 0.2% in the 1930-1940 to 3% in the group of 1951-1955. If one calculates the percentage increase between these two periods of the use of drugs before age 35, it is not difficult to estimate that except cigarettes and alcohol, in all other categories the increases were more than 700%. It is also important to note that the largest increases were in marijuana, 50% as opposed to 6% and cocaine 19% as opposed to 0.9%. The alcohol use percentage also increased from 84% to 92%. The cigarette use remained stable, but the outstanding finding is those who were born after World War II demonstrated substantial increases in the first use of every drug (Johnson and Gerstein, 1998, 27-33). The pattern that is emanating could be summarized with few simple statements. Use of alcohol has steadily increased across the post World War II phases. The age of beginning rounded up to age 21. The percentage of people using any alcohol before age 15 more than doubled. Those who used alcohol regularly also demonstrated a similar pattern. In the use of cigarettes, the number of people who used cigarettes regularly before the age of 35 declined steadily after the war. The pattern did not change considerably, and the war seemed to have no effect on the smoking habits of the population. Since 1945, it has been observed that the percentage of population using regular cigarettes before age 21 has declined steadily. The percentage of people using regular cigarettes before age 15 has remained constant at 38% in the postwar era. This reflects that cigarette smoking at the older age groups has declined with maintenance of a steady state level at the early adolescent age (Johnson and Gerstein, 1998, 27-33). Perhaps the most significant finding is that the percentage population using each of these three drugs, marijuana, cocaine, and hallucinogens before age 21, peaked in the population just born after the World War II. This level steadied thereafter, but it continued. The initiation, continuation, and maintenance levels of these three agents are almost identical. The hallucinogen peaked at the earliest, 13% using it before the age of 21. Those who started marijuana and cocaine earlier could not get rid of it. The percentage using marijuana before age 21 increased by 250% in those who were born between 1946-1950. Those who were born between 1951-1955, the percentage using cocaine before age 21 increased by 200%. Thus, it is evident that even though there is a possibility that World War II has some correlation with the increased incidence of drug use, the reasons are not clear. Since drug use is usually a concealed phenomenon, it is very difficult to get sufficient data to elucidate this possible correlation of drug habits with the postwar societal situations. Literature does not conclusively highlight these factors, and may researchers have advanced hypotheses to explain these factors (Johnson and Gerstein, 1998, 27-33). The end of World War II was a prominent landmark in the history of illicit drug use. The increase in the illicit drug use in the postwar era may be accounted from several hypothesis in the literature. Kelly explains coping behaviour from four different angles. These four aspects are necessary for the prediction of an individual's adaptation to the different systems in his environment. Human being explores, that is, he demonstrates a preference for novel social experiences for participation in diverse social settings. Human being anticipates and puts in some thought for future societal settings. In this process, he attempts to establish a locus of control and desires to envisage a social effectiveness for himself. A study reports the behavioural parameters of a middle or upper class adult who uses marijuana can be used as a model to understand the factors inherent in a particular drug use behaviour, and from these one can attempt to understand the factors that may be involved in increased drug use in the postwar period (Fisher and Strantz, 1972, 1406-1414). This model user is expected exhibit a high need for change, a low need for deference; the locus of control will be internal; at least one aspect of his environment will be above average in fluidity; he will demonstrate a low intrinsic commitment to the law; he will have a moderate to high adherence to the "hang-loose" ethic; he will have a personal history of psychoactive drug use; his expectations regarding marijuana effects will be consonant with his personal values; he will have a peer relationship wither casual or close with one or more marijuana users. To these, it may be added, he must have access to marijuana. Taking the example of LSD, it would be worthwhile to study this availability factor in a particular drug use behaviour (Fisher and Strantz, 1972, 1406-1414). In the 1930s, scientists at Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company in Switzerland were developing medicines derived from ergot and discovered compounds that were useful in treating migraine headaches as well as in obstetrics. For instance, certain ergot compounds were found to hasten childbirth by increasing uterine contractions. These medicines, however, did not have hallucinogenic qualities. In 1938, the Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann, working for Sandoz, synthesized LSD-25, so named because it was the twenty-fifth compound made in this series of ergot derivatives. However, LSD's potent psychoactive properties were not discovered until five years later when, in 1943, Dr. Hofmann accidentally ingested a minute portion of the compound. Within about 40 minutes, he experienced the first reported LSD "trip," a phrase coined from the "journey" that many users describe after ingesting a hallucinogen. In 1949, Sandoz began marketing LSD-25 to psychiatrists in the United States for use in psychotherapy to help patients more quickly access repressed emotions. LSD use increased in the late 1950s and early 1960s, popularized by media and such "psychedelic gurus" as Timothy Leary, the former Harvard professor who was a vociferous proponent of LSD. Thus, by observing the timeline, availability of the drug can be cited as an important cause of the surge in drug behaviours in the postwar era. From these, it can be convincingly deduced that war and postwar cultural changes in the society and its economic and political effects, would lead to changes in the population that would exhibit that at least one aspect of his social environment is above average in fluidity. This would lead to a situation, where this model individual would feel the need for fluidity leading to high need for unique experiences over and above the conventional and contemporary personal or social experiences. Thus as estimated, this population would feel a low need for conformity to conventional behaviour. All of these can be viewed to be arising from a perception of this individual to be in control most of the time in the context of the consequences of his behaviour. The second important point arises from law against drugs, and this individual's belief is that laws regarding the drugs are unjust, and he thinks himself safe from law and police, since he uses drugs in a discreet manner. Ethical loosening in the postwar era has important contribution in this concept, and this also corresponds to our subjects' hang-loose ethic through which the population demonstrates a readiness for social change and attempts to get out of organized religion. The previous experiences of psychoactive substances, and thereby, he had had a chance to modify his mental processes, and he perceives that drug use as a right provides him positive and specific effects. Conventional drug use behaviours thus would create a population of drug users, and over time exposure to them as a close or casual peer, the population inclined to use the drug may develop the belief that the consequences of a drug use are valued personally. Moreover, it may act as a hideout, where the individual get relaxation, fun, sensual stimulation, and scope self-exploration as respite from a complex life. More research literature has thrown light into this incidence of postwar surge in drug use. One hypothesis is imbalance in cohort size. Easterlin hypothesis suggests that there had been an imbalance in cohort sizes in the postwar era. According to this hypothesis, the consequences of cohort size extend beyond the direct effect of population numbers on the incidence of events. There were increases in the birth cohort sizes. This could have increased the supply of young workers above the demand of labour in the postwar years. This could result in smaller than expected socioeconomic opportunities. This frustration could be the cause of increased illicit drug use. The society could as well have a young society increasing the chances of young population interacting with a young peer group rather than with the older population. As elicited earlier, this has an effect in the spread of drug use culture in contrast since the interaction with the older population was less, who would otherwise help to create an anti-drug use belief and culture (Easterlin, 1980, 24-43). Postwar years have also seen drastic changes in the familial living arrangements. Increased rates of divorce led a societal system where the number of children aged 17 or younger living with two natural parents showed a steady decline over the years. This reflected a change in the value system, and one-parent family became the norm. It has been shown that children in one-parent family are more likely to suffer from poverty. This signifies deprivation, and these deprived children from one-parent family would receive low general parental support and would be more likely to engage in so-called delinquent acts including illicit drug use (Hogan and Lichter, 1995, 93-141). Historians would agree that post war society underwent a dramatic change in beliefs and values. Social turmoil always has been shown to have surges in drug use. War represents a socioeconomic crisis. Each crisis may have initiated a period of increased tolerance for drug use followed by a period of decreased tolerance with the growing awareness of population about the increased cost of illicit drug use. This would have been projected a change in the mass media messages that would shape the public beliefs and values about drug use, licit or illicit. Economically, however, there had been phenomenal modification in the drug markets in the postwar era. The drug markets are usually known to be highly segmented with different cartels controlling the production, shipping, and distribution of each drug. Variations in the cost of supply and impositions from the Governments would affect the price and the availability of a particular drug. Changes in price can significantly affect initiation of a drug habit. Pricing of other drugs work in a similar manner, and demand for them responds to price shifts in such markets. The role of availability of a particular drug thus can control the use. To conclude, it can be stated that drug use has been influenced by war, and research has shown that determined by several known and unknown factors, the postwar era has seen resurgence of drug use of several different categories with only smoking demonstrating a downward trend. 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