History, culture and subjective experience: an exploration of the social bases of drug-induced experiences.

Abstract

The physiological effects of drugs can be ascertained by standard techniques of physiological and pharmacological research. Even if physiologically observable effects are substantially the same in all members of the species, individuals can vary widely in those to which they choose to pay attention. A user suffering from drug-induced anxiety may also come into contact with non-users who will offer him definitions, depending on their own perspectives and experiences, that may validate the diagnosis of going crazy and thus prolong the episode, possibly producing relatively permanent disability. These non-users include family members and police, but most important among them are psychiatrists and psychiatrically oriented physicians. Physicians, confronted with a case of drug-induced anxiety and lacking specific knowledge of its character or proper treatment, rely on a kind of generalized diagnosis. A number of variables, then, affect the character of drug-induced experiences.

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