Using Drugs Properly

• Drug – non food substance taken into the body that can change the structure or the function of the body or mind

• Medicine – drug that is used to treat an illness or relieve pain

Read Package label

• Directions explain medications purpose and how to use it

• Warnings about any side effects and when to ask a doctor before using the medicine

• A list of active ingredients

• The expiration date, which is the date after which the medicine should not be used

Misusing and Abusing Drugs

• Takes more than the recommended or prescribed dosage of a medicine or mixes medicines without asking a doctor

• Continue to take medicine after it is no longer needed

• Stops taking a prescribed medicine sooner than the doctors in instructions indicate

Misusing and Abusing Drugs

2 forms of drug abuse

• Illegal – Using substances that are illegal, marijuana, cocaine, LSD

• Legal drugs – Using a legal drug in a harmful way, painkillers

Marijuana

• Mood altering drug

• Made from leaves of the HEMP plant

• Usually smoked when rolled in cigarette paper, in pipe or mixed with food

• Can make you feel relaxed, sad, fearful, and suspicious

• Short and Long term effects – PAGE- 303

Stimulants

• Drug that speeds up the bodies functions

• Cocaine, crack cocaine

• Increases heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure

• Most stimulants are illegal

• People can become addicted to stimulants

Amphetamines

• Strong stimulant drugs that speed up the nervous system

• Come in many forms and can be smoked, inhaled, swallowed or injected

• Gives user feeling of energy and makes them stay awake

• Page 304 – side effects of amphetamines

Amphetamines

Cocaine and Crack Cocaine

• White powder made for leaves of the coca plant

• Inhaled, injected, smoked

• Gives a brief feeling of power but quickly replaced by anxiety and depression

• First time users run risk of addiction or fatal heart attack

Crack cocaine and Cocaine

Cocaine and Crack Cocaine

• Crack Cocaine – concentrated form of cocaine

• When smoked reaches the brain in 10 seconds

• Produces feeling of energy and excitement, feeling only lasts about 15 minutes

• Then user feels depressed and raves more of the drug

Depressants

• Drugs that slow down the body’s functions and reactions, including heart and breathing rates

• Come in tablet or capsule form and are swallowed

• Doctors sometimes prescribe to treat sleeplessness or anxiety

• Tranquilizers

Depressants

Depressants

• Make the user feel very relaxed

• Abusers experience mood swings or depression

• If mixed with alcohol can cuase coma or death

Other Illegal drugs

• Inhalants – substances whose fumes are breathed and produces mind altering sensations (glue, paint gas, spray paint)

• Causes nausea, vomiting and brain damage, coma, death

Inhalants

Other Illegal drugs

• Narcotics – Drugs that relieve pain and dull senses

• Some are legal but very carefully controlled by doctor

• Morphine and codeine, oxycotten

Other Illegal drugs

• Hallucinogens – drugs that distort moods, thoughts and senses

• LSD, PCP

• People may become violent, due to imaginary images sounds or distortions of real objects

LSD

PCP