Drug Symposium

Introduction

What do you say when someone walks up to you at a party and offers you some “smack”, “junk” or “h”? These are just some of the street names used when talking about drugs. Few people get addicted to these drugs after only one night, but with the help of peer pressure and the fear of being a social outcast, these drugs can become a normal aspect of life for some. An individual can then become dependent, either psychologically or physically.

What is addiction?

Drug addiction or drug dependency is the phrase used to describe the situation when someone has a psychological or physical compulsion to take a drug. The longer a person is addicted to a drug, the more dangerous the drug can become. This is due to the factor of tolerance. Tolerance is the state where the body needs an increasing amount of the drug to achieve the same effects.

Normally, when people think of drug addiction, they think of heroin or cocaine addicts and the estranged “junky...