Summary
Contents
How do we understand drug use? How are drugs related to our social worlds? How should drug use be understood, approached and dealt with? Insightful and illuminating, this book successfully discusses drugs in social contexts. In an elegant manner, the authors bring together their different theoretical and practical backgrounds, offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary introduction that opens up a wide scientific understanding moving beyond cultural myths and presuppositions. Powerful and engaging, this book discusses main questions within the field of psychoactive drugs research, such as: Why do people take drugs? How do we understand moral panics? What is the relationship between drugs and violence? How do people's social positions influence their individual involvement in drug use? This is an invaluable reference source for students on criminology, sociology and social sciences programmes, as well as students and drug service practitioners in social work, social policy and nursing.
Common Illicit Drugs
Common Illicit Drugs
‘Common illicit drugs’ refers to substances (such as cocaine) that are illegal under national and international laws to supply and, in most but not all cases, to possess. Common illicit drugs also refer to those substances (such as minor tranquilisers) which are lawful to possess with a medical prescription but are used illicitly for non-medicinal purposes.
The term ‘illicit drugs’ generally refers to illegal or unlawfully possessed substances. The term ‘drug’ tends to denote an illegal substance. However, if the term ‘drug’ is used more broadly to mean any form of intoxicant, then legal substances, such as alcohol and nicotine, may be included. The term ‘drug’ is also widely used to mean substances used for medicinal purposes. Within the medical ...