1.6 Chapter Summary
Jacqueline Lewis
Key Summary Points
- Psychoactive drugs are substances that influence the functioning of the human brain, altering mood, feeling, emotion, sensation, thought, perception, and/or behaviour.
- Classifying drugs is complicated. Although there are 5 basic psychoactive drug classifications based on their pharmacological effects (depressants, hallucinogens, opiates/opioids, stimulants, THC), many substances can be placed in more than one class.
- People use substances for a variety of reasons including: medical, ritual and recreational.
- There are issues with using the labels of “legal versus illegal” to categorize drugs. Definitions of legal and illegal change over time. Some substances can be categorized as both legal and illegal, and even that categorization is complicated. The concept of illegal is often equated with harm, despite legal drugs also being harmful.
- Effective educational materials on psychoactive substances need to be non-judgmental, evidence/science-based materials, with credible messaging and behaviour modelling.
