Drug Schedules and Controlled Substances – Drugs of Abuse

00:01 How do we classify illicit medications or medication with high risk of potential? The FDA and DEA have a five point classification system, one being the worst, and five being not so bad in terms of potential for abuse.

00:17 So, we call the worst drug schedule I drugs. So, schedule I drugs have no medical use at all.

00:23 And they have a very high addiction potential. So, those are drugs like heroin, LSD, mescaline and all of the others that are listed there.

00:32 Grade II or schedule II drugs are drugs that do have a medicinal use, but they also have a high addiction potential.

00:39 So, we try not to use these drugs as much as possible. These includes the amphetamines, Cocaine, we sometimes use clinically, with people who have severe nose bleed. So, I remember when I was in pharmacy school, we had to make a cocaine paste.

00:53 And I remember being very nervous about inhaling any of the product. So, it is used. We do use cocaine paste in nose bleed.

01:00 But it's not as commonly used, and it's not something that we often encourage its use.

01:05 Methylphenidate, short acting barbiturates and strong opioids are also used.

01:10 A good example of a strong opioid that's used in clinical practice is fentanyl which has now become one of the most abused opioid in the market today.

01:19 Now, the schedule III drugs have a lot of medical use. There is a moderate abuse potential with them.

01:27 So, these are the anabolic steroids that I had mentioned earlier, barbiturates, and sometimes moderate opioid agonists.

01:35 The class IV drugs are medically use and there's a low abuse potential.

01:40 So, these are most of the benzodiazepines. These are some of the stimulants and some of the hypnotic drugs.

01:46 Schedule 5 drugs have an even lower potential for dependence and abuse.

01:52 These may include cough medicines with low amounts of codeine, antidiarrheal medications, like Lomotil, and pregabalin.