Illegal Drugs Medicine misuse When medicines are used

Illegal Drugs

Medicine misuse • When medicines are used in ways other than intended • Carelessness • Misused intentionally

Substance abuse • Any unnecessary or improper use of chemical substance for non-medical purposes • Overuse or multiple use of a drug

Illegal drugs • Street drugs • Against the law to manufacture, possess, buy, or sell

Synthetic drugs • Chemical substances produced artificially in a laboratory. • Regardless of how they are taken the effects are deadly

Illicit drug use • Use or sale of any substances that are illegal or otherwise not permitted

Gateway drugs • Drugs that often lead to other serious and dangerous drug use • Alcohol and nicotine

Trends in teen drug use • Using drugs at younger ages • 11% of teens age 12 and up use drugs • More trying heroin • 9% use marijuana • Consider marijuana to be safe

Overdose • A strong or even fatal reaction to taking a large amount of a drug • Accidental • Can not control quality, purity, or strength

Tolerance • Need more and more to get the same effects

Physiological dependence • Body develops a chemical need for the drug • Experiences severe effects when the drug is taken away

Psychological dependence • Person believes a drug is needed in order to feel good or to function normally

Withdrawal • Occurs when a person stops using a drug • Nervousness, insomnia, severe nausea, headaches, vomiting, chills, cramps, and death

Addiction • Physiological and psychological dependence on a drug

Costs of substance abuse

• Negatively affects performance in school, sports, relationships and family • $67 billion burden on society – criminal cost each year • 5% of the 4 million women give birth to drug addicted babies

Psychoactive drugs • Stimulants – medical use • Depressants – medical use • Narcotics – medical use • Hallucinogens – no medical use

Stimulants • Drugs that speed up the central nervous system • commonly abused – amphetamines, methamphetamines, cocaine • Nicotine and caffeine

Cause • Increase heart and respiratory • High blood pressure • Dilated pupils • Decrease appetite • Blurred vision • sleeplessness

Chronic users • Hallucinations • Delusions • Paranoia – irrational suspiciousness or distrust of others

Amphetamines • Medical use has declined • Used illegally to stay awake and alert, improve athletic performance, lose weight, temporary high • Physical and psychological

Euphoria • Feeling of intense wellbeing or elation that may be followed by a complete “crash” of letdown

Methamphetamine • Used to treat diseases – Parkinson’s and obesity • Called crank, speed, or ice • Paranoid or violent • Smoked, snorted, injected or swallowed

• Food and water not important • Fumes alone are deadly

Cocaine • Made from the coca bush • Illegal to use or possess • Powerful stimulant • Effects last from 20 min. to several hours

• High is followed by a let down – user will want more • Depression, edginess, weight loss • Physical dependence • Tissues damage to nose • malnutrition

• Risk of heart attack • May disturb electrical impulses in the heart • HIV – shared needles • Snorted

Crack • Form of cocaine that is smoked • Converts cocaine into lumps or rocks – freebase – use dangerous solvents; can cause injury or death – explosion or fire

• Extremely addictive and dangerous • Effects are felt within seconds – want more when the high starts going away – less than 20 min. • Sore throat, hoarseness, and lung damage • Death by cardiac or respiratory failure

Depressants • Sedatives • Drugs that to slow down the central nervous system • Most commonly used alcohol

• Relax muscles, relieve tension and worry, bring on sleep, slows down heart & breathing, reduces blood pressure • Physical and psychological

Barbiturates • Induce sleep • Mood changes, more sleep than normal, coma • Alcohol + Barbiturates = death

Tranquilizers • Reduce muscular activity, coordination, & attention span • Medical use – relieve anxiety, muscle spasms, sleeplessness, & nervousness

Methaqualone • Reduce anxiety and insomnia • Temporary euphoria – withdrawals are unpleasant • Physical

• Physical • Effects – headaches, diarrhea, dizziness, convulsions, and coma • Many die from combining this drug with alcohol

Narcotics

Opiates • Another name for narcotics • Drugs derived from the opium plant that have a sedative effect • Opium poppy flower • Relieves pain

• Cause drowsiness • Physiological dependence • Cause stupor, sleep, depress respiration, coma or death • Commonly abused – heroin

Morphine • Reduce severe pain • Terminal cancer patients • Appetite suppressant, cause severe constipation, addiction • Physical

Codeine • Weaker than morphine • Used in cough medication • Physical

Heroin • Made from morphine • No medical use • Depresses central nervous system • Slows breathing and heart rate

• Coma and death • Tolerance develops very quickly – physical • Babies can be born addicted • Withdrawal is very painful • HIV • Now 10 x purer

Methadone • Laboratory-made drug narcotic that blocks the withdrawal symptoms of opiate narcotics • Physical • Does not produce euphoria and mind-altering effects

Hallucinogens

• Drugs that alter moods, thoughts, and sense perceptions, including vision, hearing, smell, and touch • All hallucinogens are psychological dependence

Phencyclidine • PCP or angle dust • Considered the most dangerous drug • Prepared synthetically • Feels distant and detached

• Time pass slowly, body movements slow down, muscle coordination is impaired, and touch and pain are dulled. • Tragic deaths, serious accidents, and terrible acts of violence • Overdose and death by strange and destructive behaviors

Lysergic acid diethylamide • LSD or acid • Most potent of all moodaltering chemicals • Tablet, capsule, and liquid – that is colorless, tasteless, and odorless

• Superman effects – false sense of security and power that has resulted in deaths • Panic , anxiety, or accidental suicide

Mescaline • Psychoactive ingredient in peyote cactus • Bad trips or frightening imagines • Stomach cramps and vomiting

Anabolic steroids • Synthetic testosterone • Causes mood swings and aggressive behavior • High blood pressure, acne, baldness, liver damage, heart disease, increase body and facial hair

• Strokes, clogged arteries • Males – depression, low sperm count, decrease testicles, increase breast size • Females – breast shrinkage • Muscles look bigger but not stronger

Cannabis • Hemp plant • Illegal drug • Hallucinogen but has the effects of both Stimulate and depressant

Tetrahydrocannabinol • THC • Produces the “high” in marijuana • 10 x stronger today

Marijuana • Cannabis that is smoked, eaten, or drunk for intoxicating effects • Alters senses, coordination, reaction time, impairs decisions making skills

• Lowers body temp, increases heart and blood pressure • Stimulates the appetite – “munchies” – however lose the effect when one eats • Talkative, giddy or quiet, withdrawn

• Loss of will power, motivation, lack of energy and paranoia • Affects memory, difficulty in recalling things and paying attention, slower reaction time • More carcinogens than cigarettes • Stronger today than in the 60’s

• Males – lowers hormone testosterone and decreases sperm production • Females – stillbirths, low birth weight and conditions similar to FAS • Damaging to respiratory system • Psychological

Hashish • Hash • The dark brown resin collected from the tops of the cannabis plant

Inhalants • Substances with breathable fumes that are sniffed and inhaled to give hallucinogenic or mindaltering high • Many accidental deaths

• Nausea, sneezing, coughing, nosebleeds, fatigue, liver and kidney damage, change in bone marrow, brain damage st • Coma or death 1 time used • Suffocation • Peak age of use 14

Designer drugs • Synthetic substances meant to imitate the effects of narcotics and hallucinogens

Look-alike drugs • Drugs made so as to physically resemble specific illegal drugs