Introduction

This book was developed to provide students with an openly licensed free textbook for a popular undergraduate course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The course, titled “Drug Use and Abuse,” is described in the course manual as an “introduction to the biological, psychological, and legal aspects of drug use and abuse” as a survey course that considers community and university resources concerned with drug use and misuse with an emphasis on personal and social actions for responsible drug use.

As this course is taught though the Department of Community Health, drug use and misuse are discussed in this text through the lens of community health and the impact of drug use and misuse on community health. The book contains eight distinct chapters addressing the background of drug use and misuse, including key terms, as well as an introduction to different categories of drugs including gateway drugs, opioids, and prescription drugs, and concluding with evidence-based prevention and treatment models.

It is our sincere hope that this book will help students better understand their own relationship with drugs and drug use as well as the broader societal impact of drug use and misuse on community health. Additionally, it is our hope that instructors will find this as a resource to use with their own classes both at the University of Illinois and beyond.