The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7488 p151
9 February 2008

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• Clarke Inquiry (2)
• Minor ailment scheme
• EHC
• WCPPE (2)
• Dispensing
• Community pharmacy
• PSNC
• Drug addiction
• The Society (2)

Letters to the Editor

Drug addiction

The decision is the responsibility of the abuser

From Mr J. S Tait, MRPharmS

I write in support of R. C. Jacob (PJ, 2 February 2008, p120). Fraser Harvie (PJ, 19 January 2008, p59) states that in addiction the organ is the brain and the causal agent is stress. Unlike diabetes there is no organic or genetic link to stress, and therefore addiction does not fit the disease model.

Stress is merely one of several factors in the motivational mix and every person exercises his or her own free will to start. Surveys reveal interrelated causes such as:

• boredom leading to experimentation with drugs

• lack of domestic discipline

• no sense of responsibility in this permissive society

• affluence in a search for new thrills

• rebellion against authorities

• peer pressure

• escape from living in a competitive society

• unemployed with time to spare

• a spiritual vacuum with no meaning or fulfilment in life

Essentially, the drug abuser is an unstable, maladjusted personality who has emerged as the product of disorganising forces from the family or environment causing him persistently or periodically to resort to excessive use of drugs as a means of assuaging his sense of malaise or frustration experienced in the world of human relationships.

Other drug abusers simply succumb to the pandemic drug culture through experimentation or having tried drugs for kicks. Clearly, the decision to choose is the responsibility of the abuser.

The late Sir Derrick Dunlop, past chairman of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, observed that, of the biological species, (unlike rats) Homo sapiens is unique in his persistence to resorting to drugs in the management of everyday affairs.

What is the nature of man? No age has learnt so much about man and no age has learnt so little about who man is.

The drug culture must be challenged and changed by zero tolerance, this expressed in no uncertain terms by the Government, media, sport authorities, social services, the arts and the professions. Our fractured society must be mended by allocating top priority to marriage, responsibility and domestic stability.

The escalating drug scene, inter alia, is inversely proportional to our spiritual maturity.

John Tait
Inverallochy, Aberdeenshire

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