Drug Addiction: A Social Problem

Social Problems
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Institution
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Social Problems
As a sociologist, how would you advocate for dealing with the social problem of addiction in the country?
Drug addiction is a problem that continues to plague different parts of the world. Numerous methods have been proposed or put forward to help deal with the issue of drug addiction. However, before we get to how addiction should be dealt with from a sociological perspective, it is first important to understand what the term drugs, as well as drug addiction, stand for.
The term drugs can be defined as a substance that interferes with a person’s psychological, physical and in some cases intellectual functioning. It should be noted that drugs do have the potential to be abused. For example, CADUMS or the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey notes that there are three classes of psychoactive pharmaceutical drugs which are often abused by Canadians. These include opioid pain relievers, stimulants, and tranquilizers and sedatives. These as CADUMS notes have become the most abused in Canada and thus need to be curtailed.
Drug addiction, on the other hand, is the over-dependence on drugs which comes as a result of abusing or overusing a particular drug. In 2011, for example, of the people who drank alcohol in Canada, “18.7% (representing 14.4% of the total population) exceeded the guideline for chronic effects and 13.1% (10.1% of the total population) exceeded the guideline for acute effects.” What the above means is that people who are dependent on alcohol are quite many in Canada and this calls for action. Addiction is a plague that ought to be weeded out. In some countries, addiction has taken hold of the young generation and thus taking hold of those who should be considered ...