Drug Abuse in Health Care

RUNNING HEADER: Sociology
General Education
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RUNNING HEADER: Sociology
Issue/topic: Drug abuse in health care
This paper will typically investigate on how the use of drugs affects a person's life and the entire
cultural society. This paper discusses in detail the following research questions/writing prompts :
( a) what laws govern or pertain to the issue? (b)What are some of the effects of this issue on
personal health and the contemporary cultural society?
Drug and substances abuse is an international issue facing the health care sector. Researchers
need to study this particular topic in detail (Cherry & Jacob, 2016).
Level 1 research question/writing prompts
What laws govern or pertain to the issue?
Drug laws and drug crimes have been researched on as a result of continuous attention over the
years. Laws exist in each state and also at the federal level which normally prohibits personal
handling, production, and sale of specific regulated drug substances (Ulrich et al, 2010). Some of
these legal prescription drugs that are commonly misused and hence controlled by law include
opioids that are used to relieve pain, depressants like valium, and stimulants like Ritalin. Some
use bhang as a legal drug deeming it to have medicinal purposes.
Legal drugs
It's evident that the legality of a particular drug mainly depends on a person issuing it or the
purpose which it is being used for. For instance, amphetamines are normally utilized for
treatment of deficit disorders, barbiturates assist in the treatment of anxiety levels and marijuana
can be prescribed to assist in the alleviation of cancer –induced nausea condition. However,
prescribed and unsupervised utilization of these particular drug substances is seen to bring

RUNNING HEADER: Sociology
danger to people and the entire society in general (Kessler & Glasgow, 2011). Thus, over the
years, lawmakers have designed laws in order to regulate the use, abuse, production and the sale
of drugs without legal permission or without prescription by a qualified physician.
Federal, State, and Local Drug Laws
in spite of the fact that there exists a long-term federal policy enacted in order to fight the abuse
and continuous distribution of these controlled drug substances, each particular state has its own
series of drug laws (Sanjari, Bahramnezhad, Fomani, Shoghi & Cheraghi,2014). One critical
distinction between these is the fact that while the highest percentage of federal drug convictions
result from trafficking, the highest percentage of both local and state arrests are usually carried
out on chargers regarding possession of these drugs. The majority of laws put in place are meant
of marijuana.
Federal state drug laws also differ from those of state and local in terms of sovereignty of their
consequences faced immediately after being convicted. Federal drug laws have heavy
punishments and longer jail sentences. State arrest for possession without intending to distribute
the drug and also involve various probations, short term jail or little fines (Kleiman, Maiwald,
Conzelmann, Lauffenburger, & Sorger, 2011).
An example is Drug prohibition law which government prohibits a drug except under cases
where it's prescribed by a professional physician or license.
Level 2 Research Questions/Writing Prompts
What are some of the effects of this issue on personal health and the cultural society?