This handbook provides the reader with a detailed, critical review of the biochemical, pharmacological and sociological aspects of drugs of abuse. Each chapter is written with high quality, expert integration, and with a unique and fresh approach to the substance abuse problem.
The Handbook of Abusable Drugs includes twenty-one chapters arranged in logical sequence, from the introduction to social pharmacology to simple definitions of euphoria, compulsive drug use, tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal. The book analyzes the contemporary drug scene, motives for substance use, the pharmacodynamic properties of drugs, and routes of administration. Basic pharmacological considerations and principles of drug action are thoroughly discussed. A pharmacological classification of abusable drugs is presented and each prototype drug, such as narcotics, narcotic-antagonists, methadone, internal opiates, alcohol, sedative-hypnotic stimulants, tobacco, cannabis, hallucinogens, anti-anxiety agents, psychotropic agents, and over-the-counter drugs, is treated separately in great detail.
The Handbook of Abusable Drugs has both theoretical and practical significance. It serves as an excellent reference work for behavioral scientists, clinicians, pharmacologists, biochemists, and other scientists, and intelligent lay people interested in and charged with understanding the phenomenology of the substance abuse problem.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.