The very word drug, immediately conjures a multitude of connotations that reflect our many views of the pharmaceutical and herbal substances we ingest. We characterize drugs as hard, soft, performance enhancing, mind expanding, toxic, synthetic, natural, addictive, dangerous and miraculous. Personal … [Read more...]

I’ve already defined as a drug, anything you swallow, inject, inhale or absorb through body tissue to modify some mental or physical function. (See Drug Therapy). Drugs work at the molecular level. Regardless of whether a drug has been synthesized in a factory or picked from a plant, it is made up … [Read more...]

There are really only two main ways to determine if a drug does what it is supposed to do. One way is to give the drug to people and observe what happens. This method has been used for as long as we have taken drugs. Naturopathy and practices such as traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine are … [Read more...]

What if there was a drug that could completely relieve your pain but carried a 1 in a hundred thousand chance of killing you? Would you try it? What if the chances of death were 1 in a million or 1 in 10,000? Regardless of what you decide, your decision would likely be based on weighing risk (the … [Read more...]

Please forgive me for paraphrasing the title of an article about drug use published in the humor magazine the National Lampoon more than 30 years ago. I couldn’t resist the temptation. Opioids are a class of drugs that are either derived from opium or synthesized to be chemically similar to it … [Read more...]

If you want to be a carpenter, you’d better learn how to use a hammer and saw. If you’re going to be a doctor, pharmacist, nurse, naturopath or other health care provider, you’d better learn how to prescribe, dispense or administer a drug. Without adequate training the chance of causing … [Read more...]

Using drugs is like using doctors. When done correctly, you can benefit, sometimes greatly. Done poorly, you’ll just add to your problems. Be rational. Act wisely. At the beginning of this series, I listed 3 questions I ask myself about drugs (see Thinking About Drugs): What does the drug … [Read more...]