What Does drug Mean
A drug is a plant, mineral or animal substance that has a stimulating, hallucinogenic, narcotic or depressing effect . A soft drug is known as a drug that has a low addictive degree , such as cannabis, while a hard drug is strongly addictive (such as cocaine and heroin).
On the other hand, drugs are the raw materials of biological origin that are used, either directly or indirectly, to make medicines . The chemical composition of the drug provides a pharmacological action that is useful for therapy .
At a general level, drugs are known as substances that, when introduced into the body, can alter or modify its functions. The people can take drugs that generate pleasure, although the suspension of the consumer generates a psychic discomfort. Excessive drug intake, on the other hand, has negative consequences for the body. Drug addiction is known as the need to consume drugs to obtain pleasant sensations or eliminate some type of pain.
According to the effects on the central nervous system, drugs can be classified as depressants (they inhibit their functioning and slow down nervous activity, such as alcohol, morphine, methadone and heroin), stimulants (they increase bodily functions and they excite the central nervous system, as occurs with cocaine, caffeine, nicotine and amphetamine) or hallucinogens (they disturb consciousness and distort perception, as do LCD and peyote).
It should be noted that there are legal drugs that can be purchased freely or under medical prescription, while other drugs are illegal (they can only be purchased on the black market ).
Legalization of drug use to fight crime
In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to legalize the possession and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, among other drugs considered, until then, illegal. In a fight aimed at lowering the crime rate, the Portuguese government replaced the prison sentence with the possibility of receiving therapeutic treatment . It is worth mentioning that it is the place with the highest rate of drug use in the world.
It was argued that the fear of being incarcerated is a very negative and counterproductive factor in the life of an addict and that, on the other hand, it was more profitable for the country to face the cost of free therapy than to support the same individuals in prison. . Thanks to this new initiative, people accused of having bought illegal drugs were referred to a support group made up of a psychologist, a social worker and a legal advisor.
Trying to answer the question of how effective legalization was in this specific case, it is worth mentioning that at the time, many feared that this policy would open the doors to a kind of tourism in search of free access to drugs and worsen the already terrible situation that Portugal was going through at the beginning of the new millennium. However, the results obtained a few years later showed that the opposite had happened.
Among the improvements noted after giving the experiment a while, it was appreciated that the use of illegal drugs by adolescents had decreased, as well as the HIV infections caused by sharing syringes, while the percentage of people seeking treatment to combat drug addiction had risen to more than double its equivalent in 2001. According to expert analysis, this measure enabled the Portuguese government to deal with the problem of illegal substance use with considerably more success than it had previously been. obtained any western country so far.