Book contents
- How to Talk to Your Child About Drugs
- How to Talk to Your Child About Drugs
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 What Are Psychoactive Drugs, Who Uses Them and Why?
- 2 Understanding Adolescence
- 3 Having the Drug Conversation with Your Child
- 4 Drugs and the Brain
- 5 How Do Drugs Cause Harm?
- 6 Types of Drugs
- 7 Rise of the Synthetics
- 8 Legal but Harmful: Prescription Medications, Tobacco, Vaping and Alcohol
- 9 Behavioural Addictions
- 10 Detecting Drug Use and What to Do about It
- 11 Treatment and Recovery
- 12 Final Thoughts
- Useful Resources
- References
- Index
1 - What Are Psychoactive Drugs, Who Uses Them and Why?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2025
- How to Talk to Your Child About Drugs
- How to Talk to Your Child About Drugs
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 What Are Psychoactive Drugs, Who Uses Them and Why?
- 2 Understanding Adolescence
- 3 Having the Drug Conversation with Your Child
- 4 Drugs and the Brain
- 5 How Do Drugs Cause Harm?
- 6 Types of Drugs
- 7 Rise of the Synthetics
- 8 Legal but Harmful: Prescription Medications, Tobacco, Vaping and Alcohol
- 9 Behavioural Addictions
- 10 Detecting Drug Use and What to Do about It
- 11 Treatment and Recovery
- 12 Final Thoughts
- Useful Resources
- References
- Index
Summary
Drug use is common. It is estimated that one in ten people in the UK have tried an illegal psychoactive drug in the last year.
Young people use more drugs than any other age group, many by their mid-teens.
Cannabis is the most commonly used illegal psychoactive drug.
People use psychoactive drugs to change the way they feel.
Psychoactive drug use can result in new feelings that would otherwise be hard to experience, or take away unwanted feelings. To feel good, or stop feeling bad.
Sometimes psychoactive drugs are used for social gain, bringing a sense of belonging and identity.
As we will see in Chapter 11, some people experience mental health problems which increase their risk of using drugs
The UK has two drug laws, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. These laws place all psychoactive drugs under control and rank some drugs according to their potential to cause harm.
The UK drug laws make it an offence to produce, supply, import or export and, in some cases, possess a psychoactive drug.
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- Information
- How to Talk to Your Child About Drugs , pp. 6 - 23Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025