Drug Facts
There's a lot of "information" floating around the Web about drugs and even some misinformation spreading by word-of-mouth. The movies, music and other media don't always accurately portray the risks of use either. With all the hype around drugs, you may not realize that most high school students choose not to smoke weed.
There is a complicated list of reasons why people try or use drugs. Some people do it to change the way they feel, but by taking drugs, they haven't changed the situation. They've only distorted it for a little while. And since many drugs are depressants, the "escape" of drug use isn't happy and can be quite unpleasant. Former users often say that drugs ended up isolating them from friends and family and made them feel more alone.
Remember no one "plans" to become a drug addict, and every one of the millions of people with drug dependency started out thinking they had it "under control."
Alcohol
Alcohol comes in many forms: beer, wine, liquor. It is a depressant – it slows your body down, making it difficult to think clearly. Alcohol can also make people aggressive and violent.
Risks
Because it reduces inhibitions, drinking alcohol may make you act in a way that would embarrass you under normal circumstances. It can also make you do dangerous things that you wouldn't normally do. Drinking too much (binge drinking) can cause alcohol poisoning, which can lead to coma and even death. Alcohol use increases the risks of liver damage, mouth, throat, esophagus and larynx cancer and heart disease.
Statistics
Each year, an estimated 7,000 people under the age of 21 die from alcohol-related injuries.
.In 2002, 29 percent of drivers aged 15 to 20 who died in traffic accidents had been drinking alcohol.
Repeated alcohol exposure can alter the trajectory, or path, of teen brain development impacting adolescents even after they become adults.
Forty-five percent of those who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 14 become alcohol dependent at some time in their lives, compared with 10% of those who wait at least until age 21.
People who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence at some time in their lives.
Early drinking onset has been linked to unintentional injuries, car crashes, physical fights, unplanned sex, and academic underachievement in teens.
Cocaine and Crack
Cocaine is a white powder made from coca leaves. Crack is another form of cocaine that is usually smoked. Crack and cocaine are stimulants that give an immediate high that lasts a few minutes.
Cocaine and crack cause sweating, loss of appetite and increased heart and pulse rate. At higher dose levels users may feel very anxious and panicky.
Risks
Cocaine and crack affect the body and emotions.
After using cocaine and crack, many people feel tired and depressed.
Cocaine and crack use can cause heart attacks and strokes. They can also make you stop breathing.
Statistics
Cocaine can kill you the first time you use it.
Mixing alcohol and cocaine increases your risk of sudden death.
Cocaine can cause heart attacks even in young abusers.
Cocaine use can cause damage to your nose. Regularly snorting cocaine, for example, can lead to loss of sense of smell, nosebleeds, problems with swallowing, hoarseness, and a chronically runny nose.
Regular cocaine and crack users can become very paranoid.
Cocaine and crack cocaine are highly addictive.
Ecstasy
Ecstasy is a chemical that is usually taken orally as a capsule or tablet. It is a man-made drug that is chemically similar to both stimulants and hallucinogens.6 Taking ecstasy causes chemical changes in the brain that affect your mood, appetite and sleep.7
While taking ecstasy some people experience muscle tension, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, faintness, and chills or sweating. Some people also experience confusion, depression, sleep problems, and severe anxiety while taking ecstasy, even for days or weeks after.8
Risks
Ecstasy has been shown to damage nerve cells in the brains of animals. The cells most vulnerable are those that are involved with mood, appetite, sleep, and memory. Animal research has shown that ecstasy is also linked to long-term damage to neurons that are involved in mood, thinking and judgment. Ecstasy can make it difficult for your body to control its temperature. This can cause hyperthermia, which is an increase in body temperature that can lead to liver, kidney and heart failure9 Although this is a rare event, it is also unpredictable.
Statistics
Ecstasy can cause you to become dehydrated or to drink too much water without realizing it. This can be deadly because it interferes with the salt balance in your body.
Even limited use of ecstasy can cause increased heart rate, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, chills or sweating.
Ecstasy can be addictive.
GHB
GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate, or gammahydroxy-butyric acid) is a depressant that is usually available in odorless and tasteless liquid form. It can also be sold as a powder or pill. It takes effect 10-20 minutes after it is ingested and its effects typically last up to four hours.12 People who use GHB (particularly when combined with other substances, such as alcohol) may experience nausea, drowsiness, dizziness, and breathing problems.13
Risks
Coma and seizures can occur following use of GHB. Combining use with other drugs such as alcohol can result in nausea and breathing difficulties. Chronic use of GHB may also produce withdrawal effects, including insomnia, anxiety, tremors, and sweating. GHB has been involved in poisonings, overdoses, date rapes, and deaths.
Statistics
GHB affects your self-control. It is used in date rape and other assaults because it is a tasteless, odorless substance that can be unknowingly ingested.
GHB can cause people to lose consciousness.
GHB withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, tremors, sweating and sleeplessness.
Different amounts of GHB have different effects on people. In other words, no amount is safe.
Hallucinogens
Hallucinogens are strong mood-changing drugs with unpredictable psychological effects.17 LSD, or "acid," is sold as tablets, capsules, liquid, or on absorbent paper.18 PCP is illegally manufactured as tablets, capsules, or colored powder and can be snorted, smoked, or eaten.19 Other hallucinogens can come in many forms, including plants and cough suppressants.
Risks
Because hallucinogens alter your brain, they can affect the way you move, react to situations, think, hear and see. These drugs skew your perception of time, reality and the environment around you.20
Hallucinogens affect your self-control and emotions. They can cause you to mix up your speech, lose control of your muscles, make meaningless movements and do aggressive or violent things. These drugs can make you feel confused, suspicious and disoriented.21
Hallucinogens powerfully affect the brain, distorting the way the senses work and changing impressions of time and space. People who use these drugs a lot may have a hard time concentrating, communicating, or telling the difference between reality and illusion.22
Using hallucinogens increases your heart rate and blood pressure. This rapid increase can lead to heart and lung failure, possibly causing coma or even death. At low to moderate doses, PCP use causes breathing to become shallow, and flushing and profuse sweating occur. Generalized numbness of the extremities and loss of muscular coordination also may occur.23
Statistics
LSD is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is found in ergot, a fungus that grows on rye and other grains.
Originally manufactured as an IV anesthetic in 1950, PCP use in humans was discontinued because of its intensely negative psychological effects.
Hallucinogens can cause flashbacks. Effects of hallucinogenic drugs can occur weeks, months, even years after use.
Heroin
Heroin is a white or brown powder made from opium poppies. Users may snort, smoke or inject it. Heroin is a depressant. It also impairs the thinking process, which affects the way you act and make decisions.27
Risks
Heroin is highly addictive, and because of the way people use it, it enters the brain almost immediately. Users build up a tolerance very quickly and need more and more of the drug to feel the same high they did the first time they used it.28 Because the strength of heroin varies and its impact is more unpredictable when used with alcohol or illicit drugs, the user never knows what might happen with the next dose.29
Statistics
Heroin is commonly associated with fatal overdose and is a highly addictive drug.
Heroin abuse is associated with serious health conditions including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, particularly in users who inject the drug.
Inhalants
Inhalants are substances or fumes from products such as glue or paint thinner that are sniffed or "huffed" to cause a high. Inhalants affect your brain with great speed and force and keep oxygen from reaching your lungs. Animal and human research shows that most inhalants are extremely toxic. Perhaps the most significant toxic effect of chronic exposure to inhalants is widespread and long-lasting damage to the brain and other parts of the nervous system.32
Neurons in a part of the brain called the hippocampus can also be damaged by inhalants. The damage occurs because the cells don't get enough oxygen. Since the hippocampus helps control memory, someone who repeatedly uses inhalants may lose the ability to learn new things, may not recognize familiar things, or may have a hard time keeping track of simple conversations.33
Risks
Inhalants can cause sudden death. "Sudden sniffing death" can happen when a person uses inhalants even in a single session. Users can die by suffocation, choking on their vomit, or having a heart attack because the heart beats irregularly and more rapidly. Other risks include: nausea, seizures and fatal accidents. Chronic use can lead to liver, lung, and kidney problems as well as muscle weakness. Prolonged abuse can negatively affect a person's cognition, movement, vision, and hearing.34
Statistics
Inhalants can kill you the very first time you use them.
"Huffing" concentrated amounts of chemicals from paint and gas can directly induce heart failure and death. Long term effects of chronic abuse include brain, liver and kidney damage.
Ketamine
Ketamine is an odorless, tasteless drug that is found in liquid, pill and powder form. Ketamine was developed as an anesthetic for veterinarians to use on animals.38
Ketamine distorts sounds and sensations and makes users feel detached from reality. Users report sensations ranging from a feeling of floating to being separated from their bodies. Some ketamine experiences involve a terrifying feeling of almost complete sensory detachment that is likened to a near-death experience.39
Risks
Ketamine can impair your senses, memory, judgment, and coordination. Users can experience hallucinations and disconnection from everything around them.
Certain doses of ketamine can cause dream-like states and hallucinations. In high doses, ketamine can cause delirium, amnesia, impaired motor function, high blood pressure, depression, and potentially fatal respiratory problems. 40
Statistics
Ketamine causes delirium, amnesia, impaired motor function, high blood pressure, depression, and potentially fatal respiratory problems.
Because you don't feel any pain while high on ketamine, you can seriously injure yourself without knowing it.
Marijuana
Marijuana has a chemical in it called tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC. A lot of other chemicals are found in marijuana, too—about 400 of them, some of which are carcinogenic.42
Risks
Pot affects a user's judgment, motor coordination, and short-term memory. Weed can cause increased heart rate and make some users extremely anxious or paranoid. Smoking marijuana also causes some changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term use of cocaine and heroin.43
Research found that students with an average grade of "D" or below were more than four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year as students who reported an average grade of "A."44 Students who have smoked marijuana within the past year are more than twice as likely to have cut class than those who did not smoke, while health problems associated with using marijuana can keep students from attending school due to illness.45
Regular marijuana users often have shortened attention spans, decreased energy and ambition, poor judgment, high distractibility, and impaired ability to communicate and relate to others. Young people who use marijuana weekly have double the risk of depression later in life.46
Find out more about the myths about smoking weed.
Statistics
Smoking pot affects alertness, concentration, perception, coordination and reaction time, many of the skills required for safe driving and other tasks. These effects can last several hours after smoking.
Teens age 12 to 17 who regularly smoke marijuana were shown to be three times more likely than non-users to have suicidal thoughts.
Marijuana has some of the same cancer-causing substances as tobacco. One joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one cigarette.
Can you become addicted to marijuana? Actually, yes. More teens are in treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependence than for all other illicit drugs combined.
Marijuana is illegal.
Meth
Methamphetamine, or meth, is a synthetic chemical that acts as a stimulant. It is snorted, injected, smoked or swallowed. Users experience an initial rush that lasts only a few minutes. Oral or intranasal use produces euphoria-a high, but not a rush.51
Creating a sense of energy, meth can push the body faster and further than it's meant to go. It increases the heart rate, blood pressure, and the risk of stroke.52
Risks
In the short term, meth causes mind and mood changes, often making the user feel very anxious. Long-term effects can include chronic fatigue, paranoid or delusional thinking, hallucinations and mood disorders.53
Meth is very powerful and highly addictive. Users can become tolerant to its effects, and need to increase the amount they take to feel the same way they did the first time they took it.
Meth increases heart rate, blood pressure, and the risk of stroke. It can kill you the first time you take it. An overdose of meth can result in heart failure. Long-term physical effects such as liver, kidney, and lung damage may also kill you.54
Statistics
Meth can damage blood vessels in the brain, leading to strokes (which can produce irreversible damage).
Meth can kill you by causing overheating, convulsions, and coma.
Meth can cause a severe "crash" after the effects wear off.
Meth users may have cracked teeth due to extreme jaw-clenching during a methamphetamine high.
Meth can be made from lethal ingredients like battery acid, drain cleaner, lantern fuel, and antifreeze
Prescription and OTC Drugs
Prescription drugs are medications that are prescribed by a doctor to cure or treat diseases or illnesses such as common infections or even cancer. These drugs have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and found to have medical benefits when prescribed and taken exactly as directed by a health provider.
However, the FDA also warns that prescription drugs can be dangerous or even lethal when taken without a prescription or not taken as directed by the health provider or the packaging. To ensure the safety of the patient, the FDA requires prescriptions or detailed directions on the packaging to make sure the patient takes these drugs as intended. The very reason that these drugs require a prescription or detailed directions is because these drugs can be dangerous if they are not taken as directed.
Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medications that you can buy at a pharmacy without a prescription and are used to treat an illness such as the common cold. However, like prescription drugs, OTC drugs can be dangerous or lethal if not taken as directed by the packaging. Taking prescription or OTC drugs not as directed by the prescribing health provider or not as directed by the packaging is not safe — and can lead to addiction or death.
You should never share drugs, increase or decrease dosage or frequency, or take prescription or OTC drugs in a way that's different from how they are prescribed by your doctor or recommended according to the label. You never know how it could affect you. Also, don't mix prescription or OTC drugs with other substances, including alcohol, because it can lead to dangerous drug interactions.
Risks
When abused, prescription and OTC drugs can be just as dangerous as illicit drugs. Side effects of prescription drugs and withdrawal from them varies with the drug abused, but common effects include poor concentration, disorientation, apathy, feelings of confusion, addiction, anxiety, hostility and aggression, respiratory depression, dizziness, slurred speech, excessive sweating, nausea and vomiting, tremors, convulsions, lack of energy, increased heart rate and breathing, heart attacks, coma, and death.55 56 57 58
The health risks of abusing OTC cough and cold remedies include impaired judgment/nausea, loss of coordination, panic attacks, psychosis, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, loss of consciousness, insomnia, addiction, restlessness, numbness of fingers and toes, abdominal pain, irregular heartbeat, aches, cold flashes, high blood pressure, seizures, coma, and death.59 These risks can occur when these drugs are taken in very high dosages.
Many of these drugs can be addicting. Between 1995 and 2005, treatment admissions for prescription painkillers increased more than 300 percent.60
Statistics
Unintentional poisoning deaths from the abuse of opioid painkillers (such as Oxycodone and Morphine) and hallucinogens grew 55 percent from 1999 to 2004. Research suggests this is an increase attributed primarily to prescription painkillers.
Short-term effects of prescription painkillers include inability to concentrate, lack of energy, constipation, nausea, vomiting, and respiratory depression. In the long term, a user can become addicted to the drug and experience withdrawal symptoms.
Physical side effects of abusing prescription stimulants include collapse, increased heart and respiratory rates; elevated blood pressure; tremors; chest pain with palpitations; vomiting; and psychological side effects include aggression, panic, and paranoia.
Short-term effects of over-the-counter medicine abuse include, nausea, loss of coordination, headache, vomiting, loss of consciousness, numbness of fingers and toes, irregular heartbeat, panic attacks, brain damage, seizures, and coma.
Rohypnol
Rohypnol (AKA roofies, date rape drug) is a prescription sedative (not approved for use in the United States) that has no taste or odor when dissolved in a drink.63 It causes users to feel drowsy, forgetful and spacey.
Risks
Rohypnol is more dangerous when mixed with alcohol. Rohypnol can cause a kind of amnesia – users may not remember what they said or did while under the effects of the drug, making it easier for others to take advantage of them.64
You can become dependent on Rohypnol.65 Withdrawal symptoms range from headache, muscle pain, and confusion to hallucinations and convulsions.
Statistics
Withdrawal seizures can occur a week or more after you stop using Rohypnol.
Rohypnol may cause individuals under the influence of the drug to forget what happened. Other effects include low blood pressure, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, and upset stomach.
Because it has no taste or smell, Rohypnol can be put into your drink without you knowing it.
Steroids
Anabolic ("muscle-building") steroids are man-made substances closely linked to the male hormone testosterone. These drugs are available by prescription only to treat certain medical conditions. They are only safe for use when a doctor monitors the person taking them. Abuse of steroids – often in an attempt to gain more muscle mass – can lead to serious health problems.69
Risks
In both men and women, steroids can cause severe acne, male-pattern baldness, cysts and oily hair and skin.70 In males, steroid abuse can lead to shrinking of the testicles and breast development. Side effects for females can include facial hair growth, menstrual changes and deepened voice.71
Using steroids can make you hostile, violent and angry for no reason. You can experience uncontrollable outbursts of frustration and combativeness often referred to as "roid rage."72
Steroid abuse has been associated with cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, even for athletes under the age of 30.73
Statistics
Steroids can stop growth prematurely and permanently in teenagers.
Steroids can make guys grow breasts and girls grow beards.
Steroids have disfiguring effects: severe acne, greasy hair, and baldness (in both guys and girls).
Some side effects of steroid use include liver tumors and cancer, jaundice, fluid retention, high blood pressure, kidney tumors and trembling.
Steroid abusers may also develop a rare condition called peliosis hepatis in which blood-filled cysts crop up on the liver. Both the tumors and cysts can rupture and cause internal bleeding.
Tobacco
When smoking tobacco, you inhale tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and 200 known poisons into your lungs. The nicotine in cigarettes is powerfully addictive.78
Risks
Smoking is the most common cause of lung cancer. Smoking is also a leading cause of cancer of the mouth, throat, bladder, pancreas and kidney.79
Smoking can affect your appearance and lifestyle. Toxins can dry out your skin and cause premature wrinkles.80 Playing sports can be difficult since smoking causes shortness of breath and dizziness.81
Statistics
Smoking is addictive. Three-quarters of young people who use tobacco daily continue to do so because they find it hard to quit.
Smoking can kill you. Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. More than 440,000 Americans die from tobacco-related causes each year, most of whom began using tobacco before the age of 18.
Smoking puts your friends and family at risk. Each year approximately 3,000 non-smokers die of lung cancer from second-hand smoke.
*This info was from www.abovetheinfluence.com