In pharmaceutical industry, drugs, more widely known as medicine, are developed and produced to prevent, moderate and treat diseases. These drugs existed since the era of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Traditional Indian Medicine and Egyptian Medicine. After years of research on various drugs, the physical and mental effects are known. There are some medicinal benefits of drugs such as Morphine, which helps to relieve pain.

Pharmaceutical drugs are often prescribed to patients by physicians to prevent drug abuse. However, drug abuse do happen. The most commonly abused drugs are opioids, central nervous system depressants and stimulants. These are often taken in amounts not intended by the physician. The problem of drug abuse has been present for many centuries.  Drug abuse often lead to drug addiction, which could cause detrimental effects on human’s health.

In Singapore, the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) had arrested 3,245 drug abusers in 2016, which is a 3% decrease from 3,343 drug abusers in 2015. Although there is a 7% decrease from 2,034 arrested repeat drug abusers in 2015 to 1,898 in 2016, there is a 3% increase in the number of new drug abusers arrested from 1,309 in 2015 to 1,347 in 2016, where almost 67% were under 30 years old.

In 2016, drugs with an approximate street value of about $8 million were seized. Cannabis, having a 22% increase from 44.29kg in 2015 to 54.04kg in 2016 remained as the most frequently abused drugs together with methamphetamine and heroin. At least one of these three were abused by 99% of drug users while methamphetamine (79%) and cannabis (13%) prevailed as the most commonly abused drugs amongst new drug abusers.

In this blog post, we aim to discuss the chemical concept of drugs and its implications on society.