Addiction medicine: a new medical specialty in a new age of medicine.

摘要

It is doubtful that there exists any physician in Australia who did not at some stage in their training encounter an individual who abused alcohol or who smoked tobacco, whether it related to learning techniques of physical examination or how to formulate a comprehensive assessment and management plan in a 'long case'. These individuals are not uncommon in the health system.1 As many as one-quarter of patients in general medical wards consume alcohol hazardously.2 However, with the widespread increase in the availability of alcohol as well as a range of other substances, the decrease in age of onset of substance use and changes in the psychosocial profile of today's society3 not only the prevalence, but also the complexity of presentations of substance use-related problems have substantially increased. Around 9% of the total global burden of disease is attributable to the use of psychoactive substances; alcohol and tobacco aside, prescription drugs are now reported as the second most commonly abused category of drugs after cannabis, and ahead of heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine.