Hard and soft drugs



 The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed.
Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. This article has been tagged since December 2007.

 

Hard and soft drugs are loose categories of psychoactive drugs. This distinction is used in both official and casual discourse. The term hard drug generally refers to drugs illegal for nonmedical use that lead to profound and severe addiction, as opposed to soft drugs that has weaker or no physical withdrawal symptoms. Some so-called soft drugs are however strongly habit-forming of other reasons than physical withdrawal symptoms; the dividing up between hard and soft drugs is therefore only accepted in the legislation in certain countries.[specify] The manager of UNODC for ex. do not accept cannabis as a soft drug. [1] Classification of alcohol and nicotine as hard drugs is also commonly rejected in most countries.

A large part of the distinction a subjective, socially conceived notion of the consequences of usage for each. Depending on context, a particular drug can be categorized in many different ways for various reasons.

Hard drugs

Examples of hard drugs include heroin, depressants. Curiously, some of these drugs (alcohol and tobacco) can be freely purchased by adults; some can be purchased only with a doctor's prescription, and two (heroin and cocaine) are generally illegal, although cocaine is sometimes used legally as a local anesthetic and heroin is legally used as an analgesic in some countries: for example, the United Kingdom. A few analgesics even stronger than heroin—notably, fentanyl—are widely used in the U.S., but are usually administered directly by doctors.

In between "hard drugs" and "soft drugs"

Not all drugs fit under the "hard drug" or "soft drug" label. Examples of these include Ketamine, and caffeine.[citation needed] MDMA shares some features with soft drugs in that it doesn't produce physical addiction. Some studies however say that it might be psychologically addictive, though such a claim is very controversial in the medical community. It is also easier to overdose on than many soft drugs, though not as much as many hard drugs.

Caffeine, although legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions, does have a mild addiction potential (both physical and psychological) that can lead to caffeinism. Its overdose potential is also higher than that of soft drugs, though nowhere near hard drugs. If used often, caffeine can also give rise to bodily stress, ulcers, and irregular heartbeat, which can sometimes lead to death,[citation needed] though more deaths occur from overdose. Despite this, caffeine is still safer than most hard drugs. Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world.

Soft drugs

Examples of soft drugs include marijuana or hashish).

The distinction between soft drugs and hard drugs is important in the drug policy of the Netherlands, where cannabis production, retailing and use come under official tolerance, subject to certain conditions. Other drugs such as negative experiences.

See also

Sources

  1. ^ Antonio Maria Costa
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hard_and_soft_drugs". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.