A. J. S. Rayl | Apr 16, 2000 | 10+ min read
For nearly a century, it's been known that drugs of abuse alter the immune system. Since the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, however, an explosion of data has given rise to a rapidly evolving area of research. Investigators around the world have shown that such psychoactive drugs as heroin, morphine, cocaine, and marijuana affect both the neurophysiologic and immunologic systems. In recent years, researchers have produced strong experimental evidence that these drugs of a