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The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) was a public health surveillance system in the United States that monitored drug-related visits to hospital emergency departments and drug-related deaths. [1] DAWN was discontinued in 2011, [1] but its creator, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), continues to develop other sources of data on drug-related emergency visits. [1]
Hospitals participating in DAWN are non-federal, short-stay general hospitals that feature a 24-hour emergency department. [2] Patients are never interviewed. All data are collected through a retrospective review of patient medical records and decedent case files. DAWN collects detailed drug data, including illegal drugs of abuse, prescription and over-the-counter medications, dietary supplements, and non-pharmaceutical inhalants. [3] Because the DAWN cases are defined broadly, DAWN captures many different types of drug-related cases. [4] The whole point of this organization is to find out how many people abuse most drugs. They also seek short-stay hospitals, when a case is drug-related.
In 1974, DAWN was designed and developed by the scientific staff of the DEA's Office of Science and Technology. It was jointly funded with the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). [2] DAWN then became a division of the United States Department of Justice before becoming part of NIDA in 1980. On October 1, 1992, DAWN became part the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. [5] SAMHSA has contracted with Westat, a private research corporation, to manage the New DAWN on the agency's behalf. [6]
Information collected by DAWN is widely cited by drug policy officials, who have sometimes confused drug-related episodes – emergency department visits induced by drugs – with drug mentions. The Wisconsin Department of Justice claimed, "In Wisconsin, marijuana overdose visits in emergency rooms equal to heroin or morphine, twice as common as Valium." Common Sense for Drug Policy called this as a distortion, noting, "The federal DAWN report itself notes that reports of marijuana do not mean people are going to the hospital for a marijuana overdose, it only means that people going to the hospital mention marijuana as a drug they use". [7] This criticism is also not correct. DAWN has recently clarified their use of the term "drug mention" in methodology because of this erroneous claim. [8] The data is collected by a systematic and confidential review of patients' medical records. Thus, for example, a patient who broke an arm while high on marijuana would not be included in the data. A report released by DAWN in 2002 [9] claims that marijuana overdose alone resulted in documented deaths in Atlanta and Boston, respectively. However, there is no known record or evidence to support the existence of a case of human fatality by result of marijuana overdose.
Methadone, sold under the brand names Dolophine and Methadose among others, is a synthetic opioid agonist used for chronic pain and also for opioid use disorder. It is used to treat chronic pain, and it is also used to treat addiction to heroin or other opioids. Prescribed for daily use, the medicine relieves cravings and removes withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal management using methadone can be accomplished in less than a month, or it may be done gradually over a longer period of time, or simply maintained for the rest of the patient’s life. While a single dose has a rapid effect, maximum effect can take up to five days of use. After long-term use, in people with normal liver function, effects last 8 to 36 hours. Methadone is usually taken by mouth and rarely by injection into a muscle or vein.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. SAMHSA is charged with improving the quality and availability of treatment and rehabilitative services in order to reduce illness, death, disability, and the cost to society resulting from substance abuse and mental illnesses. The Administrator of SAMHSA reports directly to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. SAMHSA's headquarters building is located outside of Rockville, Maryland.
A drug overdose is the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities much greater than are recommended. Typically it is used for cases when a risk to health will potentially result. An overdose may result in a toxic state or death.
Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a substance use disorder characterized by cravings for opioids, continued use despite physical and/or psychological deterioration, increased tolerance with use, and withdrawal symptoms after discontinuing opioids. Opioid withdrawal symptoms include nausea, muscle aches, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, agitation, and a low mood. Addiction and dependence are important components of opioid use disorder.
Commonly-cited arguments for and against the prohibition of drugs include the following:
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is an American nonprofit organization working to raise awareness and understanding of psychedelic substances. MAPS was founded in 1986 by Rick Doblin and is now based in San Jose, California.
In the United States, the removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act is a proposed legal and administrative change in cannabis-related law at the federal level. It has been proposed repeatedly since 1972. The category is the most tightly restricted category reserved for drugs that have "no currently accepted medical use."
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is a United States federal government research institute whose mission is to "advance science on the causes and consequences of drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health."
Lacing or cutting, in drug culture, refer to the act of using a substance to adulterate substances independent of the reason. The resulting substance is laced or cut.
Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug liberalization may favor a regulatory regime for the production, marketing, and distribution of some or all currently illegal drugs in a manner analogous to that for alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.
Substance abuse prevention, also known as drug abuse prevention, is a process that attempts to prevent the onset of substance use or limit the development of problems associated with using psychoactive substances. Prevention efforts may focus on the individual or their surroundings. A concept that is known as "environmental prevention" focuses on changing community conditions or policies so that the availability of substances is reduced as well as the demand. Individual Substance Abuse Prevention, also known as drug abuse prevention involves numerous different sessions depending on the individual to help cease or reduce the use of substances. The time period to help a specific individual can vary based upon many aspects of an individual. The type of Prevention efforts should be based upon the individual's necessities which can also vary. Substance use prevention efforts typically focus on minors and young adults – especially between 12–35 years of age. Substances typically targeted by preventive efforts include alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, coke, methamphetamine, steroids, club drugs, and opioids. Community advocacy against substance use is imperative due to the significant increase in opioid overdoses in the United States alone. It has been estimated that about one hundred and thirty individuals continue to lose their lives daily due to opioid overdoses alone.
The drug policy of Sweden is based on zero tolerance focusing on prevention, treatment, and control, aiming to reduce both the supply of and demand for illegal drugs. The general drug policy is supported by all major Swedish political parties with the exceptions of the Left Party - which advocates for the decriminalization of private consumption - and 5 of the 7 major parties' youth wings.
The use, sale, and possession of cannabis over 0.3% THC in the United States, despite laws in many states permitting it under various circumstances, is illegal under federal law. As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, cannabis over 0.3% THC is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and have a high potential for abuse and physical or psychological dependence. Cannabis use is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs. However, individual states have enacted legislation permitting exemptions for various uses, including medical, industrial, and recreational use.
Synthetic cannabinoids are a class of designer drug molecules that bind to the same receptors to which cannabinoids in cannabis plants attach. These novel psychoactive substances should not be confused with synthetic phytocannabinoids or synthetic endocannabinoids from which they are in many aspects distinct.
In the United States, prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) or prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are state-run programs which collect and distribute data about the prescription and dispensation of federally controlled substances and, depending on state requirements, other potentially abusable prescription drugs. PMPs are meant to help prevent adverse drug-related events such as opioid overdoses, drug diversion, and substance abuse by decreasing the amount and/or frequency of opioid prescribing, and by identifying those patients who are obtaining prescriptions from multiple providers or those physicians overprescribing opioids.
In the United States, the opioid epidemic is an extensive ongoing overuse of opioid medications, both from medical prescriptions and illegal sources. The epidemic began in the United States in the late 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when opioids were increasingly prescribed for pain management, resulting in a rise in overall opioid use throughout subsequent years. The great majority of Americans who use prescription opioids do not believe that they are misusing them.
Discrimination against drug addicts is a form of discrimination against people who suffer from a drug addiction.
The drug policy of Missouri involves the policies, measures and laws set by Missouri Senate and the Missouri House of Representatives in order to stop citizens from misusing drugs.
Harm reduction consists of a series of strategies aimed at reducing the negative impacts of drug use on users. It has been described as an alternative to the U.S.'s moral model and disease model of drug use and addiction. While the moral model treats drug use as a morally wrong action and the disease model treats it as a biological or genetic disease needing medical intervention, harm reduction takes a public health approach with a basis in pragmatism. Harm reduction provides an alternative to complete abstinence as a method for preventing and mitigating the negative consequences of drug use and addiction.
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