A central task in a study of occasional, moderate, and stable nonmedical drug use was to distinguish such “controlled” use from destructive using patterns. A search of the literature revealed the lack of objective and precise definitions of drug abuse and the extent to which this had hampered efforts at treatment, prevention, and research. Popular conceptions of abuse ignored the variability of drug-using styles and tended to reflect the social acceptability of various drugs and Puritanical values. Purportedly scientific definitions, including those of the World Health Organization, proved vague, inconsistent, and culturally biased. Users' self-evaluation of their drug-taking and quantitative measures also proved inadequate. Given these difficulties, we conclude that “drug abuse” and similar terms should be replaced by more accurate descriptions of the actual drug-using situation and, if possible, illustrated with case material.
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