The Social Impact of Drug Abuse Assessment

Assignment Task

INTRODUCTION

The consumption of narcotics creates several mental, emotional, physical and social outcomes in the contemporary scenario, and it causes significant harm to people other than their users.

Several inquiries related to the consumption of Alcohol and tobacco have brought the need to look into the effects of narcotics. In this essay, an attempt will be made to evaluate the article written by Nyakutsikwa et., al (2020) on the impact of tobacco consumption and its relation to poverty in the United Kingdom. By taking into account several external variables, it identifies plausible determinants of narcotic effects with regard to poverty.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

The research methods deployed in the article are highly complex in nature. While it considers cross-sectional studies to determine alcohol and tobacco expenditure of households via multiple secondary sources in the United Kingdom, it only limits itself to the years 2016-17 study of the LCF Survey (Living Costs and Food Survey), which is inclusive of only 5031 households. While a considerable amount of research sampling has been considered for the study, it is limited in time and space to determine accurate and holistic results. The participants were selected via multiple levels of stratified random sample. From this procedure, the survey data was collected through interviews along with recorded journals of expenditures from participant diaries. The head of the house records the household-level information.

Along with this, it was important to take into account income questionnaire provided by the families being surveyed. Therefore, the questionnaire was completed by members of the household who were above 16 years of age, and were required to provide information on personal level earnings from occupation status. The limitations of this study can be considered in terms of the partial recording of information, as Alcohol and tobacco are often utilized by all house members, who might/might have yet given the required information due to personal reasons. Nevertheless, the article considers a large amount of information for which ethical approval was unnecessary as the data collected were anonymized and kept confidential.

The data analysis of the research procedures was utilized with the help of STATA 15. This helped in predicting the baseline characteristics of the household. With the use of descriptive modes of statistical results, separate spending of tobacco and Alcohol, along with their combined methods of expenditure, were calculated. An important marker of household classification under poverty-stricken was by taking into account the official UK definition of relative poverty, and households that fell below 60% were considered households living in poverty. After subtraction of tobacco and alcohol expenditure from the baseline income, the households below the 60% marker were characterized as impoverished households.

According to the authors of the research article, the analysis was not pre-registered, and the results should be considered exploratory, meaning that they carry several spaces for ethical and governance issues. The potential for bias in this article includes several errors in interpretations of errors. While the study is limited to Alcohol and tobacco, other forms of narcotics or psychoactive substances in the market are not considered. The LCF needs to gather information on electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) reliably. There is proof that these gadgets can be used in addition to or in place of smoking tobacco products. Additionally, the number of people using e-cigarettes has grown in the United Kingdom. One of its limitations is this study's inability to quantify the expenditure share on e-cigarettes and how it might influence the purchase of tobacco products.

However, the Smoking Toolkit Study, a representative, monthly, cross-sectional survey of about 1700 adults (age 16+), to comprehend the prevalence of e-cigarettes. Moreover, the research article lacks a gendered perspective to state narcotics' influence among household members. Furthermore, the collection of interviews from the head of household families leaves little room for taking into account the honest picture of the younger members of the family, who are keen to remain private about their narcotics use from their family members. Such perspectives hinder the whole truth in order to bring about effective interventions.

The United Kingdom LCF Survey suffers from severe inadequacies, of which Harrison (1995) mentions challenging structural issues and addresses partial inquiries. The article further takes into consideration the LCF dataset as its baseline analysis. Therefore, foundational and cross-sectional errors exist in the report, which independent research inquiries can overcome.

Further, Rehm et al. (2016) present another limitation in recorded (official government recorded and transactions) forms of Alcohol and unrecorded conditions of Alcohol (illegal, smuggled, cross-border sales), which are usually ignored under governmental surveys.

Under the sensitivity analysis procedures, the article's researchers utilized poverty rates published by the Office for National Statistics. The number of households living in poverty and families that transgressed into poverty due to spending on tobacco and Alcohol was determined. After evaluation and data procedures, it was estimated that expenditure on smoking and Alcohol were significant contributors towards poverty and, in most cases, exacerbated poverty among disadvantaged groups in UK households. The data represented the fact that when household income was adjusted for alcohol expenditure, an additional 300000 homes (comprising almost half a million adults and 175 000 children) ended up being categorized as living in poverty, and when tobacco usage was taken into account, 230 000 households (400 000 adults and 160 000 children) were found. Due to combined spending on these goods, a quarter of a million homes were TAEA-poor. Therefore, one of the primary research findings is that narcotics significantly contribute towards poverty.

Even though the study indicated that Alcohol and tobacco were significant resource allocators, especially for the lower class households, the reallocation of resources with the cessation of narcotics was not established. Hence this article has several post-research limitations.

Therefore, the evidentiary markers of cross-sectional analysis helped estimate parallels between narcotics and poverty in the United Kingdom.

FINDINGS

1. Expenditure on Alcohol was more common in high-income groups.

The data provided in the research article is conclusive of several indicators. It was found that 83% of households in the highest income group consumed Alcohol compared to the 47% in the lowest income domicile that engaged in purchasing Alcohol.

The association of Alcohol with high-income groups is associated with several mental factors. The study article indicates that high-income group households are in a self-sustaining loop where they drink Alcohol to relieve the stress brought on by financial pressure, which may elevate the financial strain. This phenomenon has been further enhanced by Gell and Meier (2012), who state the unhealthy lifestyles led by higher-income households in the UK. Their analysis of household expenditure on food and drinks conclusively found several parallels between health behaviours, Alcohol and diet.

The discursive research inquiry by Gell and Meier (2012), in which 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods were characterized along with a significant grouping of household beverages, highlighted higher-income families engaging themselves in occasional alcohol consumption patterns. Meaningful comparisons were drawn between households with higher incomes with major expenditures of on-trade Alcohol.

Moreover, Gell and Meier make a similar assumption to the findings of this study. According to them, households that preferred spending on Alcohol had healthier spending habits than those that preferred buying cheaper forms of Alcohol (beer or spirits). The authors of this research article make a similar claim. Where they address moderate alcohol consumption towers reasonably beneficial in providing enjoyment and social cohesion. For homes with lower incomes, it is estimated that reallocating resources spent or giving up or reducing consumption can have a positive impact.

The higher consumption of Alcohol among higher-income households can be looked at beyond the United Kingdom's spectrum. The socioeconomic inequity perspective in determining narcotics consumption is similar in Thailand, according to a study conducted by Intarut and Pukdesamai (2017). Discursive analysis in carrying out socioeconomic levels affected by concurrent alcohol use in Thailand is presumably applied under universal and generalized perspectives. It can relate to similar findings with that of this article. The research by Intarut and Pukdesamai (2017) highlights similarities in limitations in that some young members of the households might be reluctant to discuss substance addiction in front of their parents. Therefore, substance abuse may have been underrated.

In summary, the study found by Intarut and Pukdesamai (2017) demonstrates an inequality in the prevalence of concurrent alcohol use that is more pronounced among people from higher socioeconomic classes. Only smoking was prevalent among the poorest individuals, whereas only drinking was prevalent among the people who were the richest. Intarut and Pukdesamai (2017) called for programs to reduce or prevent substance use for holistic societal welfare.

2. Expenditure on tobacco was higher in low-income groups.

The research report is conclusive of the fact that the lowest income deciles had the highest proportion of cigarette users (24% of households in the lowest and 8% in the highest. Research on tobacco expenditures has been done in low-income nations, where it has been found that families that spend their earnings on tobacco narcotics also spend less on other necessities such as clothing, food, education, housing, transportation, and medical care. Analytical findings represent that in high-income households, tobacco spending is not restricted to developed nations but is significantly prevalent in lower-income sections.

The research report points out the inevitable conditions under which lower-income households have access to tobacco instead of official government ordinances in tobacco distributive schemes to limit smoking populations. Similarly, Partos et. al state that the availability of cheap tobacco in the UK market can contribute to this factor. According to them, raising tobacco prices is the most effective population-level measure to reduce smoking. However, this needs to be improved by the affordability of cigarettes in the broad-scale smoking market of the nation. This study tracks changes in product type, source of purchase, and prices paid between the years of 2002 and 2014 among adult smokers in the United Kingdom.

Moreover, another study by Melotti et al. (2011) favours this position. They elaborate on the socioeconomic perspective of increasing tobacco consumption amongst lower-income groups. Their study was conclusive of young individuals from higher income households leaning towards alcohol consumption, whereas those with a transparent inverse socioeconomic gradient with cigarette use. These findings may demonstrate how various facets of socioeconomic status might have contradictory effects on narcotic consumption and behaviour. By taking several factors like adequate motherly support, better educational attainment and a caring environment for growth, it was noticed that there were significant improvements, such as reduced smoking habits. Therefore, smoking was associated with poorer socioeconomic status.

CONCLUSION

The association of narcotics usage with health effects is discussed in several instances. This research emphasizes the need to combat smoking and drinking and their negative impacts on health. The article brings the need for more research into how resources are redistributed when households cease using tobacco or Alcohol or reduce their usage, as well as whether cessation may reduce financial stress.

Moreover, this research report's findings also have significance outside of the United Kingdom because tobacco and alcohol consumption is a global phenomenon.

While this research report does not entirely alienate itself from the consumption of narcotics, it takes practical solutions of moderate consumption and calls for state intervention to eliminate tobacco addiction for low-income households.

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