Abstract

Cocaine is amongst the most highly addictive drugs used worldwide and its expanding demand in the UK is causing it to become an increasingly, problematic drug.¹Cannabis abuse is a large scale phenomenon and its growth and cultivation within the UK has developed greatly throughout the years.²Both cocaine and cannabis since their first use and identification, have both been found to have many different effects and long term risks to health, which is the reason for their illegality. This paper views aspects of their history and origin and their psychological effects on a user, both short-term and long-term. Using relevant statistics, this paper also considers how age, sex, environments and social situations can cause different levels of abuse of these drugs. A thorough understanding of the effects and prevalence of these two major illicit drugs, can allow treatment and prevention programmes to be constructed with a clearer understanding of their target groups.³ This review pursues a conclusion on whether these programmes can be sufficient in not only reducing the abuse of these illicit drugs, but to also bring about social change and to prevent subsequent divesting effects including homelessness and suicide from occurring as frequently as they do today.

Keywords

cocaine and cannabis, psychological effects, prevalence, treatment and prevention, illicit drugs