Topic: Why do people use drugs?

It was been well documented and even more well known through firsthand experience that humans use drugs. The question at hand today is why. There are several answers to WHY someone might use a drug, and the reason of why may differ from individual to individual.

The first case is a person who has a chemical imbalance of some sort that a chemical drug may fix. For example, a diabetic patient may need special insulin injections to ensure proper sugar levels. For another example, truly chemically unbalanced depression patients might need a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI for short) such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft - just to name a few, to balance their serotonin, aka 5-HT, molecules in the system. This category of patients is the first and foremost because it is the largest. The majority of people who use drugs are because they want to cure something or alleviate sypmtoms, whether it be an a fungal infection, bacterial infection, hypertension, diabetes, HIV, and the list goes on and on.

The second and more unfortunate type are people who do not need drugs, begin a therapy for that particular drug, become habituated to the drug, and then when trying to wean off of the therapy they find they are 'addicted' to the drug. By "addicted" I mean the body has changed in response to the drug that it cannot function properly with out it. A good example of this is young kids who are misdiagnosed with ADHD, formerly known as ADD. Most kids don't need the drug adderall to calm them down. They are kids. They are SUPPOSED to be hyper, and if the kid is over hyper it is really just a discipline fault on the parents' behalf. Anyway, the parent takes the child to the doctor, and the doctor prescribes the child a prescription of Adderall. The child begins to take the medicine even though he does not need it. He continues to take this drug until he is a teenager. It's time to get ready for college. Money is short and he can barely afford Adderall. He tries to study without the help of Adderall but his mind is jumping here and there, and he can't focus. He NEEDS Adderall just to read a simple assignment. And here, we have created an unfortunate problem from a pseudo-disorder with the help of pharmaceutical formed speed. Of course, this category of people is rather low, as there are not many drugs that make you dependent on it in a manner such as Adderall.

The final case are people who use drugs for recreation. Why use a drug recreationally? Well, to have fun of course. Often times however, these type of people may use the drug so much because it's fun, but then when the drugs run out it's hard to have fun without it again.

I am not condemning or scolding people who fall in the final case, because I know many friends and almost all my peers have fallen to this category at least time or another in their lives. And honestly, so have I at one time or another in my life.

So the bottom line: We use drugs because we have to, because we think we have to, or because we become addicted to them.

And as a future pharmacist, I don't feel good about some of the cases, but in other cases where drugs save a person's life, makes my future job more worthwhile.