DRUGS

Drug Tolerance

• The diminishing effect with regular dose of the same dose.

Psychological v. Physical dependence

Withdrawal

Rohypnol-A Date Rape Drug

Characteristics 7-10 times more potent than valium Produces profound, prolonged sedation,

a feeling of well-being, and short-term memory loss

Legally prescribed in England and 26 other countries for insomnia and pre-op anesthetic – not approved in US

mid-1990’s popular as a “party drug” Tasteless, odorless, and colorless.

Date Rape Use

Drinks are spiked Causes sedation in 15 minutes –

enhanced by alcohol and marijuana

No memory of sedation period Victims don’t recall experience

making prosecution difficult

Street Use

• Smuggled from Mexico or Colombia

•‘roofies’ or ‘roches’

•$1 - $2 a pill

•1996 DEA declared is a Schedule 1 – similar to heroin – 10year prison for smuggling offense

•Up to 20 years for use in rape

Protection Guidlines

• Don’t drink something you don’t open• Don’t exchange or share drinks• Don’t accept a drink from a punch bowl• Don’t drink from a container being passed

around• Don’t leave your drink unattended• If someone orders from a bar, accompany

the person and watch it being poured.

Psychoactive Drugs• Depressants: slow down body

functions.• Stimulants: arouse body

functions.• Hallucinogens: distort

perceptions or evoke sensation without sensory input.

DepressantsAlcohol• Slows down

sympathetic nervous system.

• Disrupts memory processing.

• Reduces self-awareness.

• Involved in up to 60% of all crimes.

• The worst drug from a macro perspective out there.

• Alcohol Consumption among College Students• 81% drank alcohol in the past year – men slightly less

likely to abstain• Percentage of abstainers and frequent binge drinkers

increased • Of those who consume

– 48% say getting drunk is an important reason– 44% were occasional or frequent binge drinkers (5 in a row for

men, 4 for women)– Male, white, aged 23 or younger, never married, and belonging

to fraternities or sorority houses had higher binge drinking rates– Frequent bingers are more likely to miss a class, fall behind,

forget where they were, get hurt, damage property• Fraternities and sororities constitute the heart of the

campus alcohol culture– 66% are binge drinkers

• Task Force on College Drinking– 1400 college students die annually from alcohol-

related unintentional injuries– 500,000 students are unintentionally injured annually– 600,000 students are assaulted by drinking student– 70,000 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or

date rape– 400,000 students had unprotected sex and more than

100,000 report having been too intoxicated to know if they had sex

– 25% report academic consequences of their drinking– 150,000 develop an alcohol-related health problem

and between 1.2 and 1.5% indicate they tried to commit suicide

– 2.1 million drove while under the influence– 11% report they had damaged property while under

the influence– 31% met the criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse

• Of particular interest –• Heavy drinkers frequently drink to the point of

physical distress• Problem drinkers not only drink heavily, but also

experience trouble with authorities as a result – frequently, problem drinkers don’t label their own drinking pattern as problematic

• Context-dependent drinkers typically drink in social settings rather than at home by themselves or with family

• The single best expectancy predictor for heavy and context-dependent drinkers was social and physical pleasure, whereas the most powerful expectancy predictor for problematic drinkers was tension reduction

DepressantsBarbiturates• Tranquilizers• Taken to sleep (but

reduce REM sleep).• Taken with other

drugs- you can get a synergistic effect.

Depressants

Opiates• Heroin and

morphine• Addition comes

fast and the withdrawal symptoms are bad

Stimulants

• Amphetamines (Speed)

• Cocaine• Crack• “the crash”

Caffeine – Is it Harmful?• Most popular, and most ancient, drugs• Drug occurs naturally in more than 60 plants and

trees• Stimulates neurotransmitters in the CNS• Temporarily increases heart rate, metabolism, and

stomach-acid secretion• Dilates some blood vessels and constricts others• Wards of drowsiness and increases alertness• Shortens reaction time but little effect on verbal

fluency, numerical reasoning, or short-term memory

Can Produce -

• Trembling• Chronic muscle tension• Throbbing headaches• Depression• Insomnia • Very little long term effects

Hallucinogens

LSD (Acid)• Can cause

PTSD and schizophrenia.

• Geometric patterns

Hallucinogens

Marijuana• THC

(Tetrahydrocannabinl)• Difficult to classify• Can amplify senses• Is it addictive?

LSD

• Drug of choice in mid-1990’s• First ‘acid trip’ was taken in 1943 by

chemist Albert Hofmann, the creator of LSD:

“Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to stop my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and to go home, as I was seized by a particular restlessness associated with a sensation of mild dizziness. On arriving home, I lay down and sank into a kind of drunkenness which was not unpleasant and which was characterized by extreme activity of imagination. As I lay in a dazed condition with my eyes closed there surged upon me an uninterrupted stream of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity and vividness and accompanied by an intense kaleidoscope-like play of colors.”

Characteristics

•Called acid, sugar, big D, trips, or microdots

•Extremely potent hallucinogen

•Average dose is .5-1.0 micrograms

•Neither physical or psychological dependency, but tolerance develops quickly

•Ingestion shows effects in 30 – 45 minutes and lasts for 8 – 10 hours

Effects

•Mood and mental set will ‘color’ experience

•Changes in sensory perception

•Great variations in emotion, including depersonalization and detachment

•Vision most affected – feeling of perceptual sharness, illusions develop as objects seem to change shape and color

•Walls and other objects become wavy

•Bizarre shapes and designs with no basis in reality appear

•One sensory experience may translate into another – red is seen as warm; music is seen

•Difficult to distinguish between past, present, future

Reported personal changes

•Early proponents suggested it helped them to achieve personal insight

•Enhanced their creative activity

•Timothy Leary described religiouslike experiences; insight into philosophy, religion, and daily life

Timothy Leary & Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass)

In 1963, he and Richard Alpert were fired from their positions at Harvard after which they both lived at Millbrook for a time. At Milbrook they continued to work with psychedelics both therapeutically and recreationally...with the occasional help of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Abbie Hoffman and Aldous Huxley.

Near-Death Experiences

Near-Death Experience an altered state of

consciousness reported after a close brush with death

often similar to drug-induced hallucinations