When I use a word... The languages of medicines - defining a street drug operationally

The term “street drug”is hard to define, but three definitional methods can be considered: intensional definition, extensional definition, and operational definition. An intensional definition is one that embodies all the attributes contained in the concept being defined in a single short statement. An extensional definition enumerates all the individual components of which the thing being defined consists. An operational definition describes how things happen, first one thing, then the next, and then the next; it is created by describing all the processes involved. There are problems with both intensional and extensional definitions of a street drug, but an operational definition is possible, detailing the sources of the materials from which the products are manufactured, the manufacturing processes themselves, the methods of wholesale distribution and of end-user sale and supply, and the methods of use, listed extensionally, with examples. In brief, a street drug would be best defined not by what it is but by how it becomes what it is.