Drugs

What is it?

A man-made, psychedelic stimulant. Because it is not legally manufactured, you never know the actual dose of each tablet or if it is laced with another toxic chemical, which is common. Affects serotonin in the brain, the chemical that helps regulate mood, aggression, sexual activity, sleep and sensitivity to pain. Depression, sleep problems, severe anxiety and paranoia can be experienced weeks or months after taking it.

Effects

• Increased feelings of well-being and sociability.
• Significantly raises body temperature.
• Used at raves where crowds of people may be dancing and the user may get dangerously overheated. This can lead to liver, kidney and cardiovascular failure and death.
• It isn't enough to drink water but frequent cooling down is imperative.
• Overheating and dehydration are the most common reasons that users end up in Emergency Room.
• Drinking too much water can dilute sodium levels in the body. This causes water to be absorbed into brain cells, causing them to swell - can be fatal.
• Ecstasy can cause muscle tension, involuntary teeth clenching, nausea, blurred vision, fainting, chills, sweating.
• Regular use damages parts of the brain used for learning and memory.
• Can cause neurological damage, resulting in symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease (lack of coordination and tremors).
• Ecstasy is illegal and conviction of possession can carry long prison sentences.
• Mixing Ecstasy with alcohol or other drugs increases the risk of dangerous or lethal reactions.

What is it?

A colourless, odourless form of d-methamphetamine, a powerful and highly addictive man-made stimulant. It resembles small fragments of glass or shiny white rocks.
It is made by mixing about 15 substances including iodine, ammonia, paint thinner, Drano and lithium from batteries.

Why do People Abuse it?

• Because of the long-lasting euphoric effect it produces
• The crystal form gives longer lasting and more intense psychological effects than the powdered form.

How is it Used?

• Usually smoked using glass pipes similar to pipes used to smoke crack cocaine. It may also be injected.
• Intense high following smoking or injection may last 12 hours or more.

Risks

Crystal meth is a very dangerous drug.

• It causes rapid heart beat, increased blood pressure and damage to small blood vessels in the brain which can lead to stroke.
• Overdoses can lead to convulsions and death.
• Users can have periods of violent behaviour, paranoia, anxiety, confusion and insomnia.
• The drug can produce psychotic symptoms that persist for months or years after use has been stopped.
• It appears to damage brain cells, reducing the amount of dopamine, causing symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease and severe depression.
• The drug is often impure and the manufacturing process can be dangerous and cause fires.

Long Term Effects

• Tolerance comes quickly and user needs more meth to get the same high, forcing user to go on binges lasting days.
• Long term users experience depression, anxiety, paranoia, aggression, insomnia, hallucinations (especially bugs under the skin) and sometimes suicidal or homicidal thoughts.

Can an Addict Recover?

Experts say that crystal meth is one of the most addictive street drugs and one of the hardest to treat.

• The withdrawal symptoms (depression and physical agony) are worse than heroin or cocaine, which accounts for high relapse rate.
• There is always some impairment of memory and extreme mood swings in recovered addicts.

Types:

• LSD (Acid, Red/Green Dragon)
• Ecstacy (designer drug)
• PCP (Angel dust, Love boat)
• PCP & Cocaine (beam me up Scottie)
• Mescaline
• Psilocybin (Magic mushrooms).

You probably know why hallucinogens are abused:

• Fun
• Stimulation or depression
• Behavioral changes.

But did you know that:

• One use of LSD or PCP can cause multiple and dramatic behavioral changes.
• Large doses of hallucinogens may cause convulsions, ruptured blood vessels in the brain and irreversible brain damage.
• Many hallucinogens cause unpleasant and potentially dangerous "flashbacks", long after the drug was used.
• Most hallucinogens cause hallucinations, example: changes in perception of time, smell, touch etc.
• Use of hallucinogenic drugs may cause the onset of schizophrenia in people who are predisposed to this mental illness.