Resumo

What and how severe is the damage inflicted by the consumption of licit and illicit drugs upon the health of human individuals and upon society. Psychol. av. discip. [online]. 2013, vol.7, n.1, pp.67-80. ISSN 1900-2386.

Abstract In view of the widespread use of licit and illicit in most of the Western world, we suspect that there were not so many and so serious the damages that they cause, as stated, and we decided to assess the strength of such suspicion. The suspicion was correct in terms of physical health of individual users, as drugs do not appear among the top fifteen causes of morbidity or mortality in the population of Mexico, USA, Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. However, drugs do cause psychological and social harm to the individual by promoting motivational indolence, serious psychotic symptoms potentially irreversible, and induce the commission of risky behaviors (traffic accidents) and even criminals (robbery, assault, rape). Drug use also damages the integrity and economy of the families of users and harms to the community, since it raises the rate of unemployment, lower tax revenues, increase costs of development programs, safety and welfare, and favor the exclusion of users in the workplace, schools, clubs and various utilities. Our results are of interest for the design of actions to control drug use to be consistent with the type, severity and extent of the individual and social harm that drugs cause.

Palavras-chave : mortality; morbidity; licit and illicit drug consumption; costs.

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