Without a healthy body-input, mental health is an impossible goal.  People tend be unrealistic about what substances they can safely ingest, inhale and inject into their bodies. Small amounts of alcohol and other chemicals easily and profoundly affect their mind. They believe that they are tougher than they really are.

According to estimates from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, prescription medication abuse accounts for nearly 30% of the drug problem in the US. In 1999, an estimated 4 million people were using prescription drugs non-medically, a much larger population than use heroin, crack, and cocaine combined. The most prescription drugs of abuse were narcotics, Ritalin and amphetamines. A decade later psychotropic drug  use and abuses continue to grow into a major societal problem that has no solution beyond voluntary abstinence.

Alcohol is a food drug and the legal psychotropic drug of choice, but can do harm at great cost to the physical and mental health of modern citizens. Some people consider marijuana a recreation drug with less harmful effects than alcohol and argue in favor of legalization. The psychotropic chemicals in marijuana have medical uses and arguments for marijuana on prescription are actively debated in legislatures.

Although most narcotic agents are available as medical drugs, heroin became the most illegal, most villified "hard drug" in the US and Canada and has not been available even on prescription, despite the arguments of some physicians that heroin is the best drug to relieve chronic and severe pain.

The National Association for Public Health Policy in the USA stated:

 "It is clear that most people who take illicit drugs are experimental or recreational users. The typical drug user is scarcely distinguishable from the typical citizen and most were introduced to illicit drugs by a close friend not a pusher." The association reports that more than one hundred and fifty billion U.S. dollars have been spent since 1981 on policing and enforcement of drug laws. The result is a flourishing drug industry and a dramatic rise in the imprisonment of young black American males. In contrast, the U.S. spends 3.2 billion dollars on the treatment of drug addicts and the prevention of addiction. The association clearly believes that more money should be spent on drug treatment and less on enforcement of drug laws.”

The Human Brain provides an overview of  brain function and psychology, understood from a biological point of view.  A synopsis of the major neurological disease follows with suggestions for intervention in mental and neurological disorders.

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Human Brain in Health and Disease

Neuroscience Notes

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