Psychoactive Substance and Mental Health

Running head: PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH
PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH1
Introduction
In this era of globalization, lifestyle of Australian population is changing in a rapid
rate. In recent years, it has observed that drug addiction or the use of dangerous drug became
the major issues for the government. As per the statistics, more than 2 to3 million Australians
consume illegal drugs and it has also reported that more than 2000 deaths occurred due to
over consumption of harmful drugs. Drug has adverse effect on both physical and mental
health of any individual. Considering this fact Australian Government has taken serious
measures on the harm minimization of drug effect on the society Harm minimization helps to
assess both social and economic consequences. It has three different stages (reduction of
harm derived from drug, reduce the supply of drug, and lastly demand reduction.). Excess
consumptions of different drugs like tobacco, alcohol and other illicit drugs became the major
threat for Australian population (www.australiantimes.co.uk, 2019).. Thus, Australian
Government has established a joint effort of Harm minimization that includes the
significances of AOD (alcohol and other drug) on the society, individual and community.
Discussion
Drugs are considered as the chemical that has adverse effect on both our mental and
physical health. In Australia, drug addiction has turned into one of the major threat in their
society. Millions of Australian citizens comprising their families suffers from this problem.
As per the report generated by World Health Organization, Australia is determined as the 20th
drunkest country in the world (www.australiantimes.co.uk, 2019). More than 59,000 people
die annually due to alcohol related diseases in Australia. It is reported that in every 90
minutes one person die in Australia due to the diseases related to the drug and alcohol
addiction. This report is based on the percentage of people who use excess amount of illicit
drugs on a daily basis. Beside marijuana, ecstasy and amphetamines are considered as
most dangerous drug consumed by the Australians. More than 10 percent of Australians

PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE AND MENTAL HEALTH2
belong to the age group of 14 and above have found addicted to ecstasy (Degenhardt et al.,
2017). The addiction of drug is determined as the biological dispute that leads a person crave
for this particular substance despite knowing that it has adverse effect on his/her body.
Considering this as major risk Australian government has put their steps to decrease the use
of illicit and harmful drugs by the citizens. Different anti-drug campaigns and programs have
arranged by the Australian government to generate people awareness about the negative
impact of drugs in the society. Harm minimisation campaign deals with different works
related to improve both economic and social conditions (Munro, Allan, Shakeshaft & Snijder,
2017). Harm minimisation is the vital policy introduced by both the Australian State and
Federal governments. It has launched in 1985 since the National Campaign Against Drug
Abuse. The main aim of enacting this policy is to save public health as well as to improve
social and economic condition of Australia.
Three pillars of Harm Minimisation Work:
Harm Reduction: Australian government has formulate different strategies to reduce the
toxic level of both licit and illicit drugs that would help in reducing the harmful effect of
consumption of different drugs. The main aim of these strategies is to cut down the pain or
adverse effect of the process of drug consumption ("What we're doing about drugs", 2019).
This harm reduction is performed by ways like providing peer education about different side
effects of harmful drugs, injection service and other similar methods. This process helps in
reducing consumption level of harmful drugs by the citizens of Australia.
Supply Reduction: Supply reduction strategy aims at decreasing the supply and production
of illicit drugs by the pharmaceutical companies ("What we're doing about drugs", 2019).
Various rules and laws has imposed by the Australian government in order to refrain
pharmaceutical industries in manufacturing harmful drugs and chemicals. It also regulate