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Global-drugs
Drugs
by Cheong Yong-hwa, International Reporter, yong9669@mju.ac.kr
In California, the sale of marijuana has been legalized. In the expectation that the largest marijuana market in the world has been opened, there is a concern that it will have a serious impact on the local society. California is also the state the most Koreans live. There has been conjecture that marijuana will be incorporated into Korean society because of this change. Marijuana is a drug obtained from the leaves and flowers of the hemp plant. People think that Marijuana is relatively less dangerous than other drugs that are more harmful to the body. Marijuana is called a gateway drug because it is easy to access and it is the starting point for progressing to other drugs. Did this topic stimulate your interest? MJP is trying to get rid of any such wrongheaded interest.
The term used for one category of drugs, narcotics, is derived from the Greek word narkotikos, which means “anesthesia.” It refers to a substance that alleviates pain by inducing sleep and confusion. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report:
1. The desire for drug use is very strong (dependency).
2. The amount of drug use tends to increase (tolerance).
3. When you stop using it, symptoms that you cannot tolerate doing without it appear (withdrawal symptoms).
4. It harms not only individuals but also the society as well.
Recently, there has been a growing interest in drugs due to news that entertainers and politicians have used them. You need to know what kind of drugs there are and how dangerous they are. That way, people will not even be curious about them.
There are three types of drugs: stimulants (uppers), inhibitors (downers), and hallucinogens (psychedelics). When taken in small doses, stimulants clarify the mental state, make people feel high, and make their hearts beat fast. An overdose can cause hallucinations and a sense of insecurity, or nerves may become more sensitive, resulting in antisocial and violent behaviors. Stimulants include caffeine, nicotine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and cocaine. Inhibitors slow down the function of delivering messages to the brain. Drugs belonging to the inhibitor category are heroin, morphine, barium, cannabis, and alcohol. They mainly provide pain relief and inhibit the central nervous system, but a large dose of an inhibitor can cause loss of consciousness, vomiting, and respiratory arrest. Hallucinogens distort vision, tactile sense, and hearing, thereby affecting the perception process. Unlike the two types above, this one affects the brain. After using hallucinogens, some people feel comfortable, while others feel uncomfortable and depressed. Drugs belonging to this class are LSD, cannabis, and ecstasy.
Alcohol and nicotine are dangerous, but they are not strictly drugs; they are legal substances. However, let’s find out about them because they have similarities with drugs. First, alcohol and nicotine are addictive. Ethanol, which accounts for most alcohol, can cause addiction, and nicotine is as addictive as cocaine, a hard drug. When an addict is not able to drink or smoke, withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, violent behavior, and hand trembling occur. Alcohol and cigarettes not only ruin the function of an addict’s liver and lungs but the addict can also harm others due to loss of judgment. Nevertheless, these substances are legal all over the world because they are not highly addictive and do not directly cause harm to others. Also, unlike drugs, they are not generally powerful enough to ruin a person’s life.
Marijuana is an illegal drug. Marijuana is often called weed or Mary Jane. A small amount of marijuana is an inhibitor. The main ingredient of marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol, which maximizes all the senses of humans: hearing, taste, smell, touch, and vision. When used, it does not make people appear drunk because it does not cause hallucinations or stimulating effects. However, nausea, coughing, respiratory problems, short-term memory problems, increased heart rate, irritability, tension, and other diverse symptoms appear when it is used. Like tobacco, weed contains a lot of harmful substances and double the tar of cigarettes. Marijuana use is associated with negative effects such as panic attacks and serious withdrawal symptoms in high-doses or in sensitive users. A study that shows that marijuana is less addictive than cigarettes and does not cause much harm to the body has generated a lot of interest. However, the dependence on marijuana caused by the pleasant feelings it induces is, this study notwithstanding, very serious. Therefore, those who wish to recapture their euphoric feelings after taking the drug will try to find stronger weed. In fact, as soon as it was legalized in the US, sales of the 50-times-stronger liquid marijuana began skyrocketing.
Drugs such as cocaine, heroin, LSD, and methamphetamine are all very dangerous. Withdrawal symptoms of these drugs are especially serious compared to others. Addicts suffering from withdrawal symptoms can act unpredictably. Addicts do not have the ability to work and are tempted by crime. Most of the time, they commit crimes to raise money to buy drugs. Extreme pleasure and hallucinations brought on by drugs lead to shocking things. In Korea, pregnant women addicted to methamphetamine have had group sex. In the US, a user of the drug “zombie” tore off the face of a homeless man. When you start getting addicted to drugs, the dopamine receptor itself is damaged. Eventually, the damage worsens. Addicts use drugs to feel normal level of happiness; if they do not use drugs, they suffer constant pain. All beautiful emotions and memories of happiness with family, friends, and lovers in the past disappear. In the end, they give up rational life and live only through their physical senses like animals.
Drugs promise maximum pleasure from the standpoint of individual human happiness. But when it comes to health, drugs are an absolute evil that damages the nervous system and devastates the body and mind. Socially, drugs have negative impacts. Society is maintained and developed by its constituent human beings. Humans try to live a more satisfying life when they are not satisfied with reality. In other words, dissatisfaction is the driving force behind effort, and human effort is the driving force behind social maintenance and development. However, if everybody is drugged and pursues his or her own shallow pleasure and happiness with no foresight, nobody will feel dissatisfied, and everyone will live an indolent life. Such a society is a declining society, which ends with the dissolution of society altogether. Humans who do not belong in society lose the meaning of their lives.