Drugs & Society: Derek Chignell (Week 11 in Review)

This week Derek Chignell, took us as a class into the topic of Drugs and Society. He started by pointing out the differences between drugs that can be beneficial, and drugs that can be abused, and he took us through the history of the development of drugs to set the stage for later. He also taught about nature, and where we get some of the agents that are found in drugs, from plants.

After setting the scene he then took us into a crash course on Drug abuse, types of drugs, their effects (what they do to the body as far as symptoms and chemically/physically) and benefits if any. He also got each of us to choose a drug and do a presentation on it. And so some of our learning was actually from each other as we presented our ‘drug of choice’ hehehe. The Drugs’ origin and history, how it is used, side effects, withdrawal, interesting facts etc. And we also had a small test on some terms he threw out during the week.

Key Points:

He shared some history of drug discoveries, as the rise of technology took place, highlighting some key drugs and ideas such as;

1844-1847 - the first General Anesthetic (synthetic, not a natural source)

1865 - the first Anti-septic - Lister was the man who began to use anti-septics.

1899 - chemically made Acetyl Salicylic Acid (Aspirin)

1910 - Paul Ehrlich - the ‘magic bullet’. Chemical that you could fire into someone that would kill the virus but leave the person. Salvarsan. The first anti-bacterial agent that anyone had produced.

1921 - Insulin, related to diabetes.

1928-1943 - Alexandre Fleming - Scottish scientist.

London - St. May’s hospital.

Mould - penicillium - Penicillin - true bacterial killing agent. They needed to know how to grow it, so it could be mass produced to become a pill and used to help save their soldiers in WW2. The only way they knew how to grow it was to use a bedpan. Shallow dish. So they had stacks and stacks of bedpans trying to produce penicillium. In America, in the mid-west, fermentation barrels. Non of the strains of penicillium worked. Lab workers in America had a party, bought watermelons for the party. One of the watermelons was mouldy. Penicillium was there and they perfected the technique using a mouldy watermelon.

He shared about the 4 different categories of drugs

• Depressants

• Stimulants

• Hallucinogens

• Psychiatric - Anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic, and anti-depressant

And covered narcotics more in depth, and he talked about each category in general also taking us through the Receptor Theory model of how some of these types of drugs affect the Central Nervous System. Before letting us loose to research and present our own personal ‘drug of choice’.

Impact:

Good drugs take someone from being abnormal -> to normal

Bad drugs - drugs of abuse take someone from being normal -> to abnormal.

For me, I loved how simple and engaging he made it all. He’s a gifted teacher, and while it was simple and engaging, the enormity of the issue was not lost and I think we all left this week understanding some of the issues we face in society today when dealing with drugs, and challenging us to engage in the topic and help be apart of the solution and answers to our societies problems.

Conclusion:

I think this week really solidified for me the importance of natural medicine, not just chemical or altered medicine/ drugs. And to really be an advocate for natural medicine and good stewardship, fair laws surrounding the synthesized drugs we do have that are suitable for medical use. It’s not something Derek really ‘preached’ but it’s a belief I already held, and now hold even more. While I think lab created drugs are important, I think natural medicine needs to have a place also, instead of being shut out of Canada’s medical system because of bullying drug companies and their influence over Canada’s government.