Fact or Fiction?: Vitamins Are Harmless and Are Not “Drugs”

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Notes

¹ The term, concept, and label “drug” has many definitions, each with its own sources (religious, social, medical, legal, economic, consumers, scientific, etc.) and many types of definers, each with its own criteria, agendas, and goals. From a pharmacological-scientific perspective, a drug is any active chemical that affects the structure and/or functioning of a living organism regardless of its legal status, medical usages, religious acceptance or prohibitions, social usages, economic-commodity values, and so forth. Although their state and dimensions vary, as can and do their colors, the designation of “hard” and “soft” drugs is meaningless and misleading, as are the designations of “dangerous drugs” and “drugs of abuse.” The term “dangerous” obviously has to be meaningfully defined as one raises the issue of what the label “safe drugs” would mean and imply. Lastly, drugs are not “abused”; they are used or misused. Living organisms can be and are abused—increasingly.