Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Psychology Of Drug Abuse, John Buckman

MCV/Q, Medical College of Virginia Quarterly

The history of drug abuse is as long as history. While all drugs are being abused, this paper has attempted only to elucidate some of the psychological reasons why the western adolescent might be attracted to excessive drug use or experimentation. There has grown in the past 8 years a great interest in drugs which produce an altered state of consciousness. It is the opinion of this writer that the adolescent years may be the worst years to experiment with the strong hallucinogens like LSD, mescaline, or psilocybin. The adolescent is already under enormous pressure, both from within and without, …