You must first learn about the risk to your mind and body. No drug is without risk, in either the short or long run, although, of course, some drugs, like heroin and alcohol, carry greater risk than others, like aspirin and tea. For still others, like marijuana, the risk is unknown. But with all drugs you must decide if the risks are worth the immediate benefits. A physician makes a similar judgment when he writes a prescription. He knows that no drug is completely safe; in fact, if a chemical is not in some way harmful, it is probably completely ineffective medicine.
An effective drug must produce bodily changes, and for some people the changes are undesirable. Aspirin, for example, causes stomach bleeding in considerable number of individuals, and in some even hemorrhaging. Thus, a physician will warn ulcer patients about using aspirin. On the other hand, in dealing with a cancer patient, he will suggest the most dangerous substances – some that bring the patient to the outer edge of life – in an effort to stem the disease. For example, it was revealed that the long-term use of inhaled steroids can increase the risk of cataracts.
This was revealed by scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from data of around 31,000 people. Inhaled steroids was used by 11. 5% of those with cataracts and only 7. 5% without the eye condition, confirming beliefs that this is one major source of the ailment. This was also published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology which confirmed that doses of inhaled steroids must be minimized (Asthma drug ‘raises cataract risk’). Is the familiar problem of estimating risk versus benefit. Unfortunately, too often people cannot face that problem, consciously or rationally.
Those who have formed habits with certain drugs tend to underestimate the risk and overestimate the benefits. Furthermore, since the harm people suffer usually lies at some remote time and pleasure potential is imminent, the decision at any moment is heavily weighted for use of a drug. Even when its harmfulness has been established incontrovertibly, we still tend to make exceptions of ourselves, as in the case of cigarettes, for instance. The habitual taking of drugs – the morning coffee, the drink at lunchtime, the cigarette, the pep pill – also makes any action on a rational risk-versus-benefit basis extremely difficult.
The time to make a decision is before habits are formed. But even that may be difficult. In our social environment drug-taking appears to be as natural as eating. Almost all of us have been urged by friends at one time or another to take aspirin, to have a drink, to smoke a cigarette, to sip some coffee of tea; and today increasing numbers of us have been offered marijuana, LSD, heroin, cocaine, and other drugs that are not legal. Such offers are hard to turn down, so strong is our gregarious nature.