Abstract

Debrup Kumar Dutta, Dhrubo Jyoti Sen* and Beduin Mahanti

ABSTRACT

Hard and soft drugs are loose categories of psychoactive drugs. This distinction is used in both official and casual discourse. The term hard drug generally refers to drugs illegal for nonmedical use that lead to profound and severe addiction, as opposed to soft drugs that has weaker or no physical withdrawal symptoms. Some so-called soft drugs are however strongly habit-forming of other reasons than physical withdrawal symptoms; the dividing up between hard and soft drugs is therefore only accepted in the legislation in certain countries. The manager of UNODC for ex. do not accept cannabis as a soft drug. Classification of alcohol and nicotine as hard drugs is also commonly rejected in most countries. A large part of the distinction a subjective, socially conceived notion of the consequences of usage for each. Depending on context, a particular drug can be categorized in many different ways for various reasons.