"Substance and physical abuse: the effects on oral health".

Substance abuse is an escalating health problem. Apart from the serious consequences experienced by drug users, such abuse negatively affects the operational activities of law enforcement officers, teachers and health care workers. Adverse pharmacological and physiological effects predispose to permanent changes in neurological processes, to increasingly violent and high-risk sexual behaviour, to a higher susceptibility to HIV and to a detrimental effect on oral health with a consequent decrease in the quality of life.