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?WHAT IS AN ILLICIT DRUG

المؤلف:  Max M. Houck، Jay A. Siegel

المصدر:  Fundamentals of Forensic Science

الجزء والصفحة:  317

2026-08-05

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WHAT IS AN ILLICIT DRUG?

A drug is a natural or synthetic substance that is designed to produce a specific set of psychological or physiological effects on the human body or, in some cases, other animals. Most drugs are produced legitimately by drug manufacturers and are pre scribed for particular illnesses, injuries, or other medical problems. These drugs are most often taken and used for an intended purpose. Sometimes, however, they have effects that people find pleasurable, and thus are taken for other than their intended purposes. Drug abuse occurs when people take drugs for purposes other than for which they are intended; usually for their psychoactive effects. In addition to legally produced pharmaceutical drugs, there are also sub stances that have no legitimate, recognized medicinal purpose, but are produced and ingested entirely for their psychoactive effects. Many of these drugs are natu rally occurring substances or are extracted or derived from natural substances, usually plants. Others are purely synthetic compounds. Legally produced drugs that are abused and drugs produced for no reason other than abuse are called abused drugs, drugs of abuse, or illicit drugs. In the United States, many of them are Controlled Substances, which refer to their inclusion in a part of the Federal Code called the Controlled Substances Act (Act 21 United States C. 812). Throughout the world, many of these terms are used to describe abused drugs. The most common one is illicit drugs and that is the term that will be used in this chapter.