Prescription drugs such as tranquilizers , amphetamines , benzodiazepines , barbiturates , steroids , and analgesics can be knowingly or unknowingly over prescribed or otherwise used improperly. In many cases, new drugs prescribed in good conscience by physicians turn out to be a problem later. For example, diazepam (Valium) was widely prescribed in the 1960s and 70s before its potential for serious addiction was realized. In the 1990s, sales of fluoxetine (Prozac) helped create a $3 billion antidepressant market in the United States, leading many people to criticize what they saw as the creation of a legal drug culture that discouraged people from learning other ways to deal with their problems. At the same time, readily available but largely unregulated herbal medicines have grown in popularity; many of these are psychoactive to some degree, raising questions of quality and safety. Prescription drugs are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration. .
Illegal Substances.
Prescription drugs are considered illegal when diverted from proper use. Some people shop until they find a doctor who freely writes prescriptions; supplies are sometimes stolen from laboratories, clinics, or hospitals. Morphine , a strictly controlled opiate, and synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl, are most often abused by people in the medical professions, who have easier access to these drugs. Other illegal substances include cocaine and crack, marijuana and hashish , heroin , hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD , PCP (phencycline or "angel dust- ), "designer drugs- such as MDMA (Ecstasy), and "party drugs- such as GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate).
morphine .
Related: Pharmaceuticals .
principal derivative of opium , which is the juice in the unripe seed pods of the opium poppy , Papaver somniferum. It was first isolated from opium in 1803 by the German pharmacist F. W. A. Serturner, who named it after Morpheus , the god of dreams.