Who Says What is a Drug?
An analysis of the meaning of the word "drug" and the problems associated with applying this definition in practice – essential criteria for any rational approach to the whole drugs debate.
Who Says What is a Drug?
[John R. Sabine, Ph.D.]
Background
Every modern society considers, I believe correctly, that it has a major problem with “drugs”. We are becoming increasingly concerned about the many various issues involved – how extensive is the problem, how serious is it, what should we do about it.
This overall problem, or should we just call it “reality”, is manifest for us today primarily in two distinct and quite different ways. First, and obviously by far the most serious, the widespread consumption of addictive substances (drugs) leads to widespread anti-social behaviour, at least, and to widespread criminal activity at worst. Second, though by far less important but nevertheless given great media attention, increasing use by elite sports people of performance-enhancing substances (drugs) leads inevitably to a breakdown in the fundamental integrity of those sports.
But before society in general and sporting bodies in particular can tackle these problems – essentially either by banning such substances completely or by regulating their use – we all, and especially our various regulatory bodies, need first to be quite clear on what we mean by the term “drug” and what we understand as the coverage of this term. This article addresses solely and specifically these twin issues as being fundamental to a rational approach to the whole drug debate. Only if we have these issues straight can we realistically consider further what could and should be done about the whole set of social problems involved in “drugs”.
There are of course a further array of important questions relating to the over-prescription and over-consumption of pharmaceuticals – also popularly referred to as “drugs” and also clearly perceived to be major problems in many countries. These I cannot cover here in this brief commentary, but the discussion below is critically relevant in that debate as well.
Drugs – a legal definition
Many years ago a law in South Australian , defined “milk” for the purposes of the relevant Act as “any substance declared by the purveyor thereof to be milk”. Similarly a legal definition of “drug” realistically need be no more than “whatever the law declares to be a drug for the purposes of the law”.
Liked it
