num_pages: 111
description: Explores the history of drug usage, its roles and effects on various societies, from earliest times to the present.Drugs have been an integral part of human culture for thousands of years. Psychoactive substances have been used throughout the ages in religious ceremonies, for medicinal purposes, as economic commodities, and for mere recreation. The impact of mind-altering substances has not diminished in the modern era; indeed, the 20th century has witnessed both the unprecedented development of sophisticated medicines and the increase of drug abuse to epidemic proportions. Drugs and Civilization examines the many roles drugs have played over the course of time, from sacred substances to therapeutic agents and from recreational vices to social threats. Perhaps if people are aware of the functions--both good and bad--that drugs have served in the past, they will be more able to understand and control the influence these substances will have in the future.
language: English
title: Drugs and Civilization
titlecomplete: Drugs and Civilization (Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs, Series 2)
ratings_count: 1
publisher: Chelsea House Pub