Why the abuse of drugs like Morphine and Heroin condemned by the society but consumption of alcohol considered acceptable? Don’t both the type of substances act the same way on the Nervous System?
In: Biology
This is the information I learned directly from a toxicologist as part of my job:
First, Heroin and alcohol do not affect the body in the same way. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. Heroin is an opioid which activates opioid receptors in the brain. What makes Heroin so dangerous is how it affects the brain. The opioid receptors flood the brain with more dopamine than your brain is ever capable of producing naturally. Dopamine is the chemical in your brain that causes you to feel pleasure. This absolutely massive dump of Dopamine is what produces the high. In order to reach that same level of pleasure, the user must take progressively more and more Heroin during each session, which can lead to overdose. This is because the receptors get used to Heroin, or develop a tolerance for the drug.
Heroin use leads to terrible side effects. The user feels terrible side effects (withdrawal) from lack of use because their brain is incapable of replicating the dopamine drop without the drug. It ravages the body, often producing a skeletal appearance from malnutrition, as a result of not eating correctly or exercising. It tends to produce long periods without sleep and then sleep for days at a time. These side effects, combined with the physiological need for the person to use, make it incredibly difficult for an addict to function within society.
Alcohol is far, far less dangerous. It is a central nervous depressant, as I mentioned earlier. It slows down brain functioning and neural activity. It is psychoactive so it also produces a euphoric feeling. However, unlike Heroin, your brain is vastly better at regulating its effects, and it doesn’t affect opioid receptors. Further, for most people, consuming small amounts of alcohol has no negative effects and can cause them to relax. Many people choose to drink more alcohol, “get drunk, ” to experience its psychoactive effect of euphoria. For alcohol to be dangerous to the average person in a single drinking session, a very large quantity must be consumed very quickly.
Obviously, alcohol too is capable of causing both physical and psychological addiction and is linked to many socially destructive behaviors such as child and spousal abuse. So, it is absolutely capable of harm. But generally speaking, alcohol addiction takes a lot of time to take hold, at least in comparison to Heroin, and the side effects of use (hangovers) are significantly more manageable.
Alcohol is viewed differently from Heroin because its the oldest recreational drug in the world and has been a part of human culture for millenia. As many people have mentioned, at various points in human history, it was safer to drink than water.
Heroin was first synthesized in the 19th century as a way to treat pain, it is literally just recreational morphine. Its medical use is very limited, it is impossible to use, recreationally, in moderation and it is very deadly. A person can use Heroin one time and be addicted, though it tends to take an additional use or two for the addiction to take hold. It can take the brain upwards of ten years to readjust to equalibrium from the dopamine dump from a single Heroin use. People may get drunk hundreds of times in their lives, but not become addicted to alcohol.
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