Cocaine, crack and marijuana may be well known and abused as addictive narcotic substances, but the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) is seeking to sensitize Barbadians to the dangers of taking a prescription drug that is not prescribed for the taker; or more insidiously taking a prescribed drug for reasons or in dosages other than those prescribed. Addiction may follow.
As the manager and deputy manager of the NCSA remarked recently while publicizing a health fair slated for today at Jubilee Gardens, “when drugs are legally in the home they are more likely to be abused than if you have to go and purchase an illegal drug on the black market”. Clearly, this can be a serious problem.
The public face and scourge of drug abuse is well known. And the traditional profile is that of someone who breaks the law, smokes or ingests one of the banned narcotic drugs. Sooner or later that person becomes a failure of sorts in his or her life and the problem becomes public and one is able to conclude from the visual evidence that drugs have taken hold of that person’s life.
Attention is then focused on application of the law and trying to apply techniques of rehabilitation to get the offender back in control of his life.
But the related problem highlighted by the NCSA also needs our attention because abuse of drugs is a serious social problem and is a matter of national economic concern, whether the drugs are legally prescribed and sold above the counter in our pharmacies, or are secured in shady street corners or in darkened alleys. The economy is affected anyhow.
There are those who argue that the so called recreational drugs should be legalized and that the drug taker should be given, not a prison sentence, but remedial treatment of one sort or other to help him over his addiction to drugs.
The problem of the abuser of prescribed drugs requires even more sensitive education since some of the practices may be rooted in cultural habits of the wrong kind. Moreover, one hears of people who become addicted to legally prescribed drugs such as painkillers.
The name of Betty Ford, a former First Lady of the United States, adorns a medical treatment centre for such addiction in that country because she had the courage to go public with her problem with legally prescribed painkillers. The famous actress Elizabeth Taylor was also known to be addicted to painkillers first prescribed for her for medical reasons.
This problem needs our attention because modern science has produced a gamut of drugs for problems of anxiety and depression which can be very useful for treating these debilitating conditions.
But addiction may be an unsuspecting side effect for some people, and concentrating all our national effort on those who deliberately break the law and illegally buy narcotic substances may mean insufficient education for those who have to take prescribed drugs for their medical complaints.
This NCSA effort deserves our support. Losing productive minds and hands is something which no economy can afford and it matters little whether that loss is occasioned by deliberate misuse of the criminal kind or as a side effect of legitimate medical use and personal sensitivity. The problem is real and awareness of the dangers is key.
