Video 4: Why do people use drugs?

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Do curso por University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

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University of Geneva

Drugs, drug use, drug policy and health

1 rating

This MOOC is the first of its kind, since it addresses critical issues related to drugs from a multidisciplinary, health and human rights-based approach. Throughout the course you will cover a range of questions including what are drugs and why they controlled? What are the benefits and harms of taking drugs? How public health policies can address drug use? You will also learn about the intricacies of the international drug control framework and the negative consequences of widespread prohibitionist drug policies around the world. Finally, you will examine ways of furthering drug policy reform. The topics will be presented by over 40 speakers from scientific, academic and institutional backgrounds, spokespersons of civil society as well as people who use drugs presenting their views. By the end of the course you will have: - a strong understanding of the major health issues related to drug use and drug policy; - a clear vision of why drug policy is debated today; - and, if you so wish, you will be equipped to engage in the drug policy reform movement at your local or regional level.

Na lição

Understanding drugs and the international drug control framework

Welcome to Module 1! This week's material starts by looking at seemingly simple questions such as : « what are drugs ? » and « why do people use drugs ? » It then addresses the question : « why are drug internationally controlled ? » As you will see the answer to this question constitutes one of the founding blocks of the rest of this course. You will learn what legal elements make up the international drug control framework and what that means for countries putting in place different drug policies around the world. Once you have finished this week, you will be able to: explain what drugs and controlled substances are; describe the main elements of the International Drug Control Framework and recognize the diversity of national drug policies under a unique International Drug Control Framework. We hope that you are prepared to work through the interesting and wide-ranging material we have prepared for you. We also encourage you to stop and answer as many of the in-video (or stand-alone) reflective questions we have placed throughout the week, and look forward to receiving any feedback you may have for us! Have a great first week learning about drugs and the international drug control framework! Best wishes,The Drugs, Drug Use, Drug Policy and Health team

Video 4: Why do people use drugs?3:45

Video 5: Why are drugs internationally controlled?8:09

Conheça os instrutores

Michel Kazatchkine
Senior Fellow
Global Health Center, Graduate Institute for International Affairs and Development, Geneva
Barbara Broers
Professor (in Addiction Medicine)
Community Health Departement, Geneva University Hospitals
Aymeric Reyre
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Medicine, Paris 13 University
Jennifer Hasselgard-Rowe
Researcher and Lecturer
Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva

People use drugs because they're there.

From the moment someone pass first pull the plants out of the ground,

put it in his mouth and felt good,

people have used drugs.

People use drugs I think for a whole range of reasons.

People use drugs sometimes to treat pain.

People use drugs because they find some relief from mental or physical suffering.

People use drugs because it feels good.

We all use various drugs on a regular basis from caffeine, to sugar,

to alcohol, to drugs that are actually treated in

many countries of the world as criminal substances.

We often use them for the same reasons;

to be more wakeful,

to be more sleepful, to be relaxed,

to be energized, to feel relief from pain, to feel pleasure.

That is the human condition that we use substances to alter how we feel.

People use drugs for a number of reasons.

I think these are very complex and varied.

What we tend to do in society,

we tend to separate these into two distinct reasons.

The dominant view is it's either a criminal issue,

and it's due to people having a lack of moral compass.

For this reason, the rationale is they should be locked up and kept away from society.

The second dominant view is people who use

drugs have a medical condition or some type of medical problem.

This is the so-called deficit model,

which is where people use drugs that take them out of the reality,

which is not a very nice reality.

I think the models that are not given

so much attention or so much weight within society really deserve looking at.

Some of these the social structural issues,

which we'll see in the last couple of years.

There's been a range of literature on

this particular concept of drug use or drug dependency,

and these are Bruce Alexander's,

The Globalization of Addiction,

which really argues that addiction is a matter

of people's isolation or when they're upheavals in society,

then there'll be a rise in drug dependency.

I guess a second book that's gotten a lot of attention is

Johann Hari's, Chasing the Screen.

So, that links people's drug use or drug dependency to trauma.

So, Johann Hari locates the issue of drug dependency towards

someone's childhood or a matter of a lack of something in their childhood,

lack of emotional meeting of their emotional or physical needs.

So, we have an additional model.

But I think there's other models or other reasons that we

tend to discredit such or ignore such as the pleasure dimension.

At the end of the day,

people will use drugs unless they feel they get something out of it with some benefits.

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