by Laura Howard

Created on: August 02, 2009

There's no denying that drugs are a fundamental and unfortunate reality in every society of the world. It's not as hidden from view as we may like to think either. The questions that need to be answered are on everybody's lips: What are drugs, really? Why do people take them, and why are drugs a bane on our society?

It may seem like a silly question to ask what drugs are, but do people really know? I asked a few of my friends and every time I heard "Cocaine, Heroin, Ice". When most people think of drugs, images of youth, corruption, addiction and poverty spring to mind. Most people think drugs are the things that junkies inject, snort and smoke. That's true enough, but did you know that an alarmingly high proportion of people in the world are addicts? True story. Caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes and even pharmaceuticals are consumed by millions, maybe even billions of people daily. And the companies that produce them make a fortune.

So if millions of people ingest an alarmingly potent cocktail of drugs each day, what are the health effects? Is a quiet drink with friends or a paracetamol pill actually such a big danger to our health as the likes of Cocaine? Well, in Australia alone, over 3000 Australians die each year as a result of harmful drinking, be it from dying as a direct result such as the nervous and respiratory system failure, or from assaults and accidental death (car accidents etc). Shameful or tragic? Why are the numbers so high? Having a drink is seen as socially acceptable, but we forget all too easily that alcohol is a dangerous, mind altering depressant drug that is easily abused. The alcohol problem is just as simple as the answer; Awareness. People think that alcohol is safe because it is associated with good fun and happiness in the media. To an extent that is true: People can have a good time whilst drinking alcohol as long as it is consumed in a responsible and moderate fashion. If people knew more about the dangers, I'd hope that they would pay alcohol a bit more respect. It might save you a hangover, and in some cases, your life.

Most of us have grown up around cigarettes. Unfortunately, Cigarettes are perhaps more dangerous than any hard, illegal or mind altering psychedelic drug. 19,429 people died in Australia between 1998 and 1999, as a result of smoking. Smoking resulted in over 900,000 hospital bed hours and cost over $700 million in just hospital costs. When you relate these figures to the fact that smoking is the biggest cause

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