Drug naïvety

Drug naïvety is the physiological state of non-habituation or non-tolerance to either a specific drug or broader set of drugs related by pharmacological criteria.^[1] The term applies to the administration of psychotropics in contexts ranging from the professional medical treatment of patients to the non-medical abuse of any drug, as well as the veterinarian.

An image comparing the web of a drug-naïve spider to that of a spider having been given caffeine.

In addition to not being habituated, a drug-naïve person may have never received a particular drug. The same dose could be lethal for a drug-naïve person while having little effect on a heavily habituated person. In a medical context drug-naïveté is important considering medication dosage (pain medication, anxiety medication, anaesthesia, etc.), as the level of habituation affects a patient's baseline resistance to the effects of such medications.

See also

• Scientific control

Notes and references

1. Cohen, Calvin J. (2005). "ART Advances for Drug-Naive Patients: An Expert Interview With Calvin J. Cohen, MD". Medscape (Interview). Retrieved 2017-10-12.