Abuse of medical drugs
Visualization of narrower problems
Name(s):
Misuse of medicines
Medicinal drug abuse
Misuse of pharmaceuticals
Overuse of medicaments
Nature
The abuse of readily available legal drugs may take the form of overwillingness by doctors to prescribe strong drugs for ailments calling for less addictive or harmful means; overdosage, or other misuse, by the patient; or experiments by young people with drugs taken initially from medicine cabinets (illicit drug traffic is greatly aided by legal production). Further abuse is sometimes found in the medical profession itself (cocaine, opium, morphine, codeine, LSD, barbiturates, hypnotics, etc, are currently used in medicine). Inadequate control, testing, and general information have disastrous effects.
Incidence
Attention deficit disorder, ADD, is a fashionable disorder of the late 1990's among adults, and is probably being overdiagnosed. The stimulant drug which treats it is now widely used as a recreational drug by college students and ambitious professionals.
Re-emerging, and now drug-resistant, infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and malaria, have been encouraged by uncontrolled and inappropriate use of antibiotics. They are used to treat the wrong infections at the wrong dosage and for the wrong period of time. The use of antibiotics in food production to increase growth aggravates the problem.
Narrower
Aggravates
Medication side effects [in 6 loops]
Antimicrobial drug resistance [in 1 loop]
Reemerging infectious diseases [in 4 loops]
Illicit trade in prescribed drugs [in 9 loops]
Aggravated by
Value(s)
Reference(s)
Type
(D) Detailed problems