DRUG ABUSE |
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Drug abuse has a wide range of definitions, all of them relating to the use, misuse or overuse of a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. Some of the most commonly abused drugs include alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, caffeine, cannabis, cocaine, methaqualone, nicotine, opium alkaloids, and minor tranquilizers. Use of these drugs may lead to criminal penalty in addition to physical, social, and psychological harm.[1] Other definitions of drug abuse fall into four main categories: Public health definitions, Mass communication and vernacular usage, Medical definitions, and Political and criminal justice definitions.
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PHARMACOKINETICS |
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Pharmacokinetics is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to the study of the time course of substances and their relationship with an organism or system. In practice, this discipline is applied mainly to drug substances, though in principle it concerns itself with all manner of compounds residing within an organism or system, such as nutrients, metabolites, endogenous hormones, toxins, etc. So, in basic terms, while pharmacodynamics explores what a drug does to the body, pharmacokinetics explores what the body does to the drug.
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PHARMACOLOGY |
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Pharmacology (in Greek: pharmacon meaning drug, and logos meaning science) is the study of how chemical substances interact with living systems. If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals.
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