Psychoactive drugs
Psychoactive drugs interact with the central nervous system through neurotransmitters to alter a person's mood, perception and behavior. These drugs range from stimulants like caffeine in coffee and cola drinks, to depressants like alcohol, to powerful hallucinogens like LSD.
Like hormones, drugs are carried by the blood to various parts of the body. Unlike hormones, drugs are taken into the body from the outside. People introduce drugs into their system and from there they are gradually absorbed into the blood. Then drug molecules act like neurotransmitters and hook onto the ends of nerve cells (neurons) and send out their own chemical message.
Depressants: Alcohol
- Relaxant; relieve inhibitions, impair memory and judgment
Tranquilizers: Barbituates, benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax)
- Relieve anxiety; relax muscles; induce sleep
Stimulants: Caffeine, amphetamines, cocaine, crack cocaine
- Increase energy, alertness
Mixed Stimulant Depressants: Nicotine
- Stimulate brain activity, but most smokers say cigarettes relax them
Distortion of Experience: Marijuana (THC)
- Intensifies sensory experiences; distorts perception of time; can relieve glaucoma, nausea, sometimes impairs learning and memory
Hallucinogens: LSD, Mescaline
- Cause hallucinations, sensory distortions, and occasionally panic
Check out Commonly Abused Drugs to learn the possible devastating effects of these drugs.
Alcohol
Alcohol is an intoxicating ingredient found in beer, wine, and liquor that acts as a depressant to the central nervous system. Although alcohol is not illegal for adults to consume, it is the most widely used and abused mind-altering substance in the United States. In 2013, approximately 16.6 million adults ages 18 and older had an alcohol use disorder, according to statistics from the National Institutes of Health.
Alcohol abuse can lead to alcoholism, which is a pattern of drinking that can damage one's health, ability to work, and relationships with other people. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, drinking too much at one time or over a period of time can take a serious toll on your health. Alcohol can have a negative impact on every organ; however, it specifically impairs brain function and can affect motor skills.
Check out Alcohol's Effects on the Body to learn more about the damaging effects of alcohol.
Marijuana
Marijuana refers to the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa, which contains the psychoactive (mind-altering) chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as well as other related compounds.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is the most common illicit drug used in the United States. After a period of decline in the last decade, its use has been increasing among young people since 2007, corresponding to a diminishing perception of the drug's risks that may be associated with increased public debate over the drug's legal status. Although the federal government considers marijuana a Schedule I substance (having no medicinal uses and high risk for abuse), two states have legalized marijuana for adult recreational use, and 21 states have passed laws allowing its use as a treatment for certain medical conditions.
The effects of the drug vary somewhat from person to person and also seem to be dependent on the setting in which the drug is taken and the user's past experience. The effects can be both pleasant and unpleasant. In general, though, many marijuana users report most sensory experiences seem greatly enhanced. Users may feel elated and even the most ordinary event can take on extraordinary meaning. Marijuana is not a physically addictive drug, like heroin is, but people may become psychologically addicted, or dependent on the drug.
Marijuana affects brain development, and when it is used heavily by young people, its effects on thinking and memory may last a long time or even be permanent. It may also have a wide range of effects, particularly on cardiopulmonary and mental health. Marijuana smoke is an irritant to the lungs, and frequent marijuana smokers can have many of the same respiratory problems experienced by tobacco smokers, such as daily cough and phlegm production, more frequent acute chest illness, and a heightened risk of lung infections.
Hallucinations and Hallucinogens
Hallucinations are perceptions that have no direct external cause. Examples include seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling things that do not exist. Hypnosis, meditation, withdrawal from a drug to which one has become addicted, and psychological breakdown may produce hallucinations.
The best known, most extensively researched, studied and most potent hallucinogen is LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). In fact, it is one of the most powerful drugs known. LSD is a synthetic substance. An average dose of 100-300 micrograms produces a state, called a trip, which lasts from 6 to 14 hours. During an LSD trip, a person can experience any number of perceptions, often quite intense and rapidly changing.
As measured by the ability to perform simple tasks, LSD impairs thinking, even though users may feel they are thinking more clearly and logically than ever before.
Panic reactions are the most common of LSD's unpleasant side effects. Those who experience panic and later describe it often say that they felt trapped in the experience of panic and were afraid that they would never get out or that they would go crazy.
Abuse
Almost all of us have taken a psychoactive drug at some point in our life; it may have been caffeine in coffee or in a soda. So at what point does consumption turn into abuse?
Drug abusers or addicts are people who regularly use illegal drugs or excessively use legal prescription drugs.
An addiction means that you have impaired control over your drug use with a compulsive need to continue use despite the harm it causes.
People use drugs for many reasons: to fight boredom, low self-esteem, trying to fit in with peers, trying to forget about problems, to relax, or simply to feel good.
Tolerance is a condition in which higher doses of a drug are required to produce the same effect experienced during initial use for the drug of choice. As tolerance increases so do the risks.
Some of the many risks associated with drug abuse include death or injury from an overdose, but the greatest risk associated with psychoactive drugs is the loss of control which comes with addiction. Addiction does not occur immediately or automatically but with addiction comes the overwhelming and compulsive desire to use drugs.
Treatment for drug abuse includes admitting that there is a problem and then entering a drug treatment program. During the first stages of treatment withdrawal occurs because after the regular use of a substance, biochemical and structural adaptations have taken place in the brain.
Withdrawal is a group of symptoms that a person experiences when, after a period of regular use, the quantity of the drug substance in the brain is reduced. Upon abstinence, central nervous system receptors take days or weeks to normalize and depending on the length of time of addiction, some receptors are permanently changed.
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