Psychoactive drugs are substances that, when taken in or administered into one's system, affect mental processes, e.g. perception, consciousness, cognition or mood and emotions. Psychoactive drugs belong to a broader category of psychoactive substances that include also alcohol and nicotine. “Psychoactive” does not necessarily imply dependence-producing, and in common parlance, the term is often left unstated, as in “drug use”, “substance use” or “substance abuse”.
Production, distribution, sale or non-medical use of many psychoactive drugs is either controlled or prohibited outside legally sanctioned channels by law. Psychoactive drugs have different degrees of restriction of availability, depending on their risks to health and therapeutic usefulness, and classified according to a hierarchy of schedules at both national and international levels. At the international level, there are international drug conventions concerned with the control of production and distribution of psychoactive drugs: the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, amended by a 1972 Protocol; the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances; the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
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Production, distribution, sale or non-medical use of many psychoactive drugs is either controlled or prohibited outside legally sanctioned channels by law. Psychoactive drugs have different degrees of restriction of availability, depending on their risks to health and therapeutic usefulness, and classified according to a hierarchy of schedules at both national and international levels. At the international level, there are international drug conventions concerned with the control of production and distribution of psychoactive drugs: the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, amended by a 1972 Protocol; the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances; the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
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