Drug Dependency Abuse Project
By: Jesus Juarez 7th period 12/1/15
Alcohol
Description: colorless volatile flammable liquid that is the intoxicating constituent of wine, beer, spirits, and other drinks, and is also used as an industrial solvent and as fuel.
how its used: most commonly used as a drink or put in private parts for intoxication purposes, can also be used for cleaning, and/or preservative.
desired affect of substance: The same substance can be a poison, a powerful prescription medicine, or an over-the-counter mild medication depending on the dose and frequency of use.
how it affects the brain: alcohol can affect parts of the brain that control movement, speech, judgment, and memory. These effects lead to the familiar signs of drunkenness: difficulty walking, slurred speech, memory lapses, and impulsive behavior.
Other health effects of this substance abuse & addiction:
Brain:
Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.
Heart:
Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:
- Cardiomyopathy – Stretching and drooping of heart muscle
- Arrhythmias – Irregular heart beat
- Stroke
- High blood pressure
Liver:
Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:
- Steatosis, or fatty liver
- Alcoholic hepatitis
- Fibrosis
- Cirrhosis
Pancreas:
Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.
Cancer:
Drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of developing certain cancers, including cancers of the:
- Mouth
- Esophagus
- Throat
- Liver
- Breast
Immune System:
Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease. Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much. Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk.
What found form is the substance found in: Alcohol in the form of ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is found in alcoholic beverages, mouthwash, cooking extracts, some medications and certain household products. Ethyl alcohol poisoning generally results from drinking too many alcoholic beverages, especially in a short period of time.
What detoxification programs are available: Hospital- or medical-clinic-based programs. These programs offer both alcohol detox and alcohol rehab on an inpatient basis in specialized units. They are less common than they used to be, primarily because of changes in insurance.
Residential rehab programs. These programs can last from a month to more than a year and take place in a residential environment. Often, the treatment is divided into a series of stages that the person goes through. For instance, in the beginning, a patient's contact with others, including friends and family, is strictly limited. The idea is to develop a primary relationship with the other residents who are also recovering from alcoholism. Eventually, the person will be allowed more contact with people outside the residential community and may even go back to work or school, returning home to the treatment facility experiences.
Cannabis/ Lancebread/ Censamillia
Interesting fact: Eating mangoes prior to smoking MJ increases its effects by making the high stronger and last longer.
Fact: Marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug in the world. A survey conducted in 2007 found that 14.4 million individuals in the US alone had smoked marijuana at least once during the previous month.
Description: A tall plant with a stiff upright stem, divided serrated leaves, and glandular hairs. It is used to produce hemp fiber and as a psychotropic drug. Also a dried preparation of the flowering tops or other parts of this plant, or a resinous extract of it ( cannabis resin ), used (generally illegally) as a psychotropic drug, chiefly in cigarettes.
How is the substance used: It is usually used smoked as a cigarette (joint), but may also be smoked in a pipe. Less often, it is mixed with food and eaten or brewed as tea. Sometimes users open up cigars and remove the tobacco, replacing it with pot—called a “blunt.” Joints and blunts are sometimes laced with other, more powerful drugs, such as crack cocaine or PCP (phencyclidine, a powerful hallucinogen).
Desired affect of the substance:
When a person smokes a joint, he usually feels its effect within minutes. The immediate sensations increased heart rate, lessened coordination and balance, and a “dreamy,” unreal state of mind peak within the first 30 minutes. These short-term effects usually wear off in two to three hours, but they could last longer, depending on how much the user takes, the potency of THC and the presence of other drugs added into the mix.
As the typical user inhales more smoke and holds it longer than he would with a cigarette, a joint creates a severe impact on one’s lungs. Aside from the discomfort that goes with sore throats and chest colds, it has been found that consuming one joint gives as much exposure to cancer-producing chemicals as smoking five cigarettes.
The mental consequences of marijuana use are equally severe. Marijuana smokers have poorer memories and mental aptitude than do non-users.
How does it affect the brain: Studies in Australia in 2008 linked years of heavy marijuana use to brain abnormalities. This is backed up by earlier research on the long-term effects of marijuana, which indicate changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term abuse of other major drugs. And a number of studies have shown a connection between continued marijuana use and psychosis.
Other health effects of the substance abuse and addiction: The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day.
What form is is the substance found in: the skunk comes from a natural plant that God created millions of years ago.
What detoxification programs are available: rehab and by drinking lots of water so you can get it out of your system.
Snow Flake
Description: an addictive drug derived from coca or prepared synthetically, used as an illegal stimulant and sometimes medicinally as a local anesthetic.
How is the substance used: Cocaine use can lead to death from respiratory (breathing) failure, stroke, cerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain) or heart attack. Children of cocaine-addicted mothers come into the world as addicts themselves. Many suffer birth defects and many other problems. Mainly sniffed through the nostrils right and left.
Effect of the substance:
Cocaine causes a short-lived, intense high that is immediately followed by the opposite intense depression, edginess and a craving for more of the drug. People who use it often don’t eat or sleep properly. They can experience greatly increased heart rate, muscle spasms and convulsions. The drug can make people feel paranoid,angry, hostile and anxious even when they aren’t high.
Regardless of how much of the drug is used or how frequently, cocaine increases the risk that the user will experience a heart attack, stroke, seizure or respiratory (breathing) failure, any of which can result in sudden death.
How does it affect the brain:As cocaine interferes with the way the brain processes chemicals, one needs more and more of the drug just to feel “normal.” People who become addicted to cocaine (as with most other drugs) lose interest in other areas of life.
Health effects of the substance: None cocaine has no health effects is BAD!!
What form is the substance found in: mainly comes in rock or very well cut.
What detoxification programs available: Rehab
Heroin
Heroin is a highly addictive, illegal drug. It is used by millions of addicts around the world who are unable to overcome the urge to continue taking this drug every day of their lives knowing that if they stop, they will face the horror of withdrawal.
Heroin (like opium and morphine) is made from the resin of poppy plants. Milky, sap-like opium is first removed from the pod of the poppy flower. This opium is refined to make morphine, then further refined into different forms of heroin.
How is it used: Most heroin is injected, creating additional risks for the user, who faces the danger of AIDS or other infection on top of the pain.
How does it affect the brain:The effects on the body from continued use of this drug are very destructive. Frequent injections can cause collapsed veins and can lead to infections of the blood vessels and heart valves. Tuberculosis1 can result from the general poor condition of the body. Arthritis is another long-term result of heroin addiction.
Health effects:
Meth
Description: the drug methamphetamine
How is it used: is taken orally, smoked, snorted, or dissolved in water or alcohol and injected. Smoking or injecting the drug delivers it very quickly to the brain, where it produces an immediate, intense euphoria.
How does it affect the brain: increases the amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine, leading to high levels of that chemical in the brain is involved in reward, motivation, the experience of pleasure, and motor function.
Health effects: Long-term methamphetamine abuse has many negative consequences, including addiction. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease, characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use and accompanied by functional and molecular changes in the brain.
What form: broke down white rocks
What detoxification programs available: Rehab
Nicotine
Description: a toxic colorless or yellowish oily liquid that is the chief active constituent of tobacco. It acts as a stimulant in small doses, but in larger amounts blocks the action of autonomic nerve and skeletal muscle cells. Nicotine is also used in insecticides.
How is it used: By smoking it
How does it affect the brain: Epinephrine stimulates the central nervous system and increases blood pressure, respiration, and heart rate. Similar to other addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin, nicotine increases levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which affects the brain pathways that control reward and pleasure.
Health effects: Shot term memory, bad teeth, black lungs
What form: liquid
What detoxification programs available: Rehab
Painkillers
Description: a drug or medicine for relieving pain.
How is it used: by drinking it
Effects of the substance: The effects are broadly the same: an intense high that differs depending on the way the drug is taken (snorted, injected as liquid, injected as powder, swallowed as crushed tablet, or swallowed as whole tablet), a period of partial sedation, and delayed reactions.
health effects: It kills your insides when you take them also it damages your liver and organs.
What form: pills
What detoxification programs available: Rehab