Drug addiction is a chronic recurring disease. It is characterized by:
1) manifest (compulsive) craving for repeated administration of psychoactive substances (PAS);
2) reduction or loss of control in regard to their intake;
3) manifest negative feelings (anxiety, dysphoria, insomnia) in case the access to these substances is impossible. All variants of drug addiction have the same development process. First, a person has an impulsive craving for intake of PAS, which is mostly associated with positive emotions (euphoria, feeling of psychological and physical comfort, satisfaction), however, compulsive craving connected with the necessity to get rid of negative emotions (dysphoria, discomfort, various psychovegetative symptoms) that are associated with withdrawal symptoms – acute withdrawal syndrome – start to gradually prevail in the course of process development.
Despite the fact that the term “drug addiction” is still used by the national legislation and even some documents adopted by the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine, the 10th Edition of the International Classification of Diseases does not include it.
Unfortunately, the word “drug addict” is still associated in social consciousness mainly with the notion of a “criminal”, and not with the notion of a “patient”. The ICD-10 includes a group of diseases that are referred to the generic category “Mental and behavioural disorders due to psychoactive substance use”.
Recent research has shown that drug (opioid) addiction is a disease of the brain that forms not in everyone who uses psychoactive substances. A combination of a number of factors is necessary: hereditary, psychological, micro- and macrosocial ones.
This section will provide you with exhaustive information about:
Guidelines on drug policy and fight against opioid addiction
Statistical information
Analytics and instructions
Sites of replacement supporting therapy (RST)