Psychoactive drug

“ Very large doses can cause respiratory depression, coma, and death. The combination of depressants and alcohol can multiply the effects of the drugs, thereby multiplying the risks.
The use of depressants can cause both physical and psychological dependence. Regular use over time may result in a tolerance to the drug, leading the user to increase the quantity consumed. When regular users suddenly stop taking large doses, they may develop withdrawal symptoms ranging from restlessness, insomnia, and anxiety to convulsions and death. ”

“ Depressants (sedatives) are drugs that reduce tension and anxiety and include chloral hydrate, barbiturates (Amytal, Nembutal, Seconal, phenobarbital) , benzodiazepines (Librium, Valium) , methaqualone (Quaalude) , glutethimide (Doriden) , and others (Equanil, Placidyl, Valmid) . Drugs are any chemical substances that effect a physical, mental, emotional, or behavioral change in an individual. Drug abuse is the use of any licit or illicit chemical substance that results in physical, mental, emotional, or behavioral impairment in an individual. ”

“ Intestinal and autointoxication, combined with worry, fear, and anxiety, constitute very important causative and controlling factors in whatever mental and physical deterioration has taken place in a case of narcotic-drug-addiction-disease. Physical, mental and moral deterioration are to a very small extent direct results of narcotic drug action per se. As long as a narcotic drug addict is maintained non-toxic, uninhibited and unworried, he is practically at his individual normal, plus an added physical need. ”

“ It is best to call things by their right names, The effect upon the animal economy of every stimulant is strictly that of a poison, and every poison may become a stimulant. There is no bane in the South American swamps, no virulent compound in the North American drug-stores—chemistry knows no deadliest poison—whose gradual and persistent obtrusion on the human organism will not create an unnatural craving after a repetition of the lethal dose, a morbid appetency in every way analogous to the hankering of the toper after his favorite tipple. ”

“ In addition to the physical effects, users report feeling restless, anxious, and moody. Higher doses intensify the effects. Persons who use large amounts of amphetamines over a long period of time can develop an amphetamine psychosis that includes hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. These symptoms usually disappear when drug use ceases. ”

“ But the worst of it all is that through the carelessness of physicians, and sometimes through their criminal pretentions, habits are formed for certain drugs, such as cocaine, opium and its products, chloral and alcohol, which enslave their victims, weaken their vitality, and invite disease. I think I do not exaggerate it when I say that the drug habit, no matter how induced, is a menace to the American people. ”

“ Pleasurable as may be the stage of excitement or intoxication, fascinating as may be the dreams that follow, the evil effect upon the body is rapid and decisive.
Wasting of the muscles, sallowness of the skin, hebetude of the mind, interference with coördination, failure of the appetite, convulsive seizures, loss of strength, and idiotic offspring, seem, from all accounts, to be the uniform result of the long continued use of this drug. ”

“ The many widely advertised drug cures derive their prosperity from the desperate desire of the narcotic addict to be cured of the condition which may at any time cause him intense physical suffering. The worst evil of the narcotic situation in the past few years, and especially since the enforcement of restrictive legislation, without provision for complete investigation of the whole situation, for education, and adequate treatment of disease aspects, is the rapid growth and spread of criminal and underworld and illicit traffic in narcotic drugs. ”

“ In excess, hallucinations, and a sort of delirium is excited, and it is in this aggravated state that a man may “run amok.” This is the outstanding evil of the drug: to temporarily madden a man. But, for the fatal consequences which often ensue from running amok, people are apt to put the whole blame on the drug. ”

“ Over time, drug use itself heightens the bad feelings and can leave the user suicidal. More than half of all adolescent suicides are drug-related. Drugs and their harmful side effects can remain in the body long after use has stopped. The extent to which a drug is retained in the body depends on the drug's chemical composition, that is, whether or not it is fat-soluble. Fat-soluble drugs such as marijuana, phencyclidine (PCP) , and lysergic acid (LSD) seek out and settle in the fatty tissues. As a result, they build up in the fatty parts of the body such as the brain. ”

“ The drugs chiefly used are cocaine, opium, laudanum, morphine and heroin. These drugs are much more destructive than alcohol. Cocaine and heroin are the worst. It is very difficult to stop using any of them once the habit has been formed. Nearly every "fiend" dies directly or indirectly from the effect of his particular drug. Every one weakens the body so that there is not much resistance to offer to acute diseases. Every one destroys the will power so that a cure is exceedingly difficult. ”

“ Many of these workers have considered the possibility that their results may have been influenced by suggestion, or of bias towards results which were to be expected theoretically, and some have show that effects similar to those following the adminstration of a drug may be the consequence of the administration of a wholly inactive substance which is supposed by the subject to be the drug in question. ”

“ It is no anti-psoric, nor is it capable of antidoting the three miasms, or of inflicting medicinal diseases for life. Nevertheless, it is a deeply and speedily-acting drug, for it affects the whole internal mucous membrane, the nervous system, and the process of sanguification, thus disturbing the health for a long time. Its primary aggravating action, its deeply penetrating interference with the existing morbid process, which may lead to errors in diagnosis, and its power to [80] exhaust the reactive energies of the organism prematurely, render it a very dangerous agent. ”

“ Antidepressants include “tricyclics,” “monoamine oxidases,” and “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” (SSRIs) . SSRIs are the newest antidepressants and include fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, and paroxetine.
Why Was This Study Done?
Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) , the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) , and other licensing authorities have approved SSRIs for the treatment of depression, some doubts remain about their clinical efficacy. ”

“ Everyone is curious to experience for himself the effects produced by drugs that can make people such slaves to them. We hear too often of the intense pleasure that the drug habitué gets from his use of drugs. The curiosity thus aroused constitutes the suggestion that has led many to try the effect, confident that he or she would be able to resist any craving just before it became seriously tyrannous. Psychiatrists agree that one of the worst elements in modern social conditions is the impression generally maintained that there is such intense pleasure in the taking of drugs. ”

“ Many teenage drug users calling a national cocaine hotline report that they take other drugs just to counteract the unpleasant effects of cocaine. Certain drugs, such as opiates and barbiturates, create physical dependence. With prolonged use, these drugs become part of the body chemistry. When a regular user stops taking the drug, the body experiences the physiological trauma known as withdrawal. Psychological dependence occurs when drug taking becomes the center of the user's life. ”

“ The many wrecks of addicts to be seen trying through insufficient supply of narcotic drug, self-poisoned with other drugs which they have purchased, alcohol, bromides, coal tar products, cocaine, and of late hyoscine—their addiction disease unrelieved and undiminished—are sufficient argument against mere reduction of dose, below physical body need. ”

“ They proceed through the mild discomfort and nervousness of the previous stage to the definite manifestations and constant unmistakable withdrawal phenomena to be described. The patient endures physical suffering and displays all the clinical evidence of it. There can be no question of will-power in this stage, nor of desire for narcotic drug for any other purpose than to escape physical suffering. Whether the patient was primarily an innocent and unconscious recipient of the drug, or of the class of the vicious and weak, he is now fundamentally a sick man, afflicted with a physical disease. ”

“ Effects of Drug Use
The drugs students are taking today are more potent, more dangerous, and more addictive than ever.
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the effects of drugs. Drugs threaten normal development in a number of ways:
Drugs can interfere with memory, sensation, and perception. They distort experiences and cause a loss of self-control that can lead users to harm themselves and others. Drugs interfere with the brain's ability to take in, sort, and synthesize information. ”

“ The dream states and other sensuous results, occasionally observed, are when they occur as part of the minor toxic action of the drug, against which the developed addict is nearly or completely immune, and to the experiencing of which very few of the honest, innocent or accidental addicts have ever carried their dosage. They are commonly found only in the opium pipe smokers, an entirely different problem from that of the average narcotic addict. ”

“ Finding pain, “nervousness” and hysteria constantly claiming his attention, and that nothing relieves them so well as opium, or its alkaloid morphia, which is six times the parent strength, the physician resorts to their use more and more freely, expecting as soon as the more distressing symptoms pass away to pursue another and more permanent plan of treatment. The patient, however, having once experienced relief, insists upon the further use of the drug, sometimes feigns illness, in order to procure it, finally obtains some herself, and in guilty secrecy drifts rapidly into the habit. ”

“ There is some paresis of the extremities, and they refuse to support the body; the respiration becomes laboured, and the pulse rises in frequency to 120 or 130 beats per minute, but the mind remains clear. The symptoms occur in about an hour and a half after taking an overdose of the drug, and, if not excessive, soon disappear, leaving no unpleasantness behind. If, on the other hand, the case proceeds to a fatal end, the respiratory trouble increases, and there may be convulsions, and a course very similar to that seen in experimenting on animals. ”

“ I am told it has the property of sending the person off into a gentle sleep from which he never wakes, if only a teaspoonful be injected under the skin. A friend of mine who is a professor of toxicology at Tokio wrote to me about it, and told me of several murders that had been committed through some mysterious drug which he ultimately managed to get hold of. ”

“ He gets, simply, relief from suffering. The opiate drug has become his only immediate means of securing and maintaining a physical efficiency, a semblance of normality. No other drug will take its place. He can take tremendous doses without toxic effect. In this stage, if the drug is denied or withdrawn without competent handling, his suffering and incompetency is not, as in the previous stage, a matter of days but may persist for weeks or months after no narcotic has been administered. ”

“ Drug overdoses now take more lives every year than traffic accidents. Deaths from opioid overdoses have tripled since 2000. A lot of the time, they’re from legal drugs prescribed by a doctor. So addiction doesn’t always start in some dark alley – it often starts in a medicine cabinet. In fact, a new study released this month found that 44 percent of Americans know someone who has been addicted to prescription pain killers. ”

“ Thus we do not speak of a characteristic psychomotor retardation or acceleration in general paralysis, arteriosclerosis, or dementia præcox. Only in the case of immediate drug intoxication has a stimulating effect been attributed to such poisons as alcohol, morphine and cocaine. Experimentally, the effect of alcohol seems to be to remove inhibitions, so that there is greater freedom of motor response. Many premature and false reactions occur. Morphine and cocaine are too dangerous for experiment, though both may be taken with the idea of temporarily stimulating the mental powers. ”

“ Besides, such a patient resists the action of the drug for a long time, and it must be administered in far greater quantity than in the other case. The chloroform always retains its power, but the cerebral excitation to which some patients are subject enables them to resist its toxic action, as though the will could, so to speak, brace itself up to resist the action of the poison on the nerve-centres. The same occurs in the use of alcohol. One who will not be intoxicated may drink a large quantity without being drunk. ”

“ Any analytical chemist can analyize coffee and tea, and show that they contain a poisonous drug—caffeine—which belongs to the same class as cocaine, morphine, nicotine and strychnine—alkaloids.
In highly organized people, these poisons have a direct effect upon the heart, liver, stomach and nerves, and set up various indications of approaching sickness. These facts have been known by physicians for many years, but it is difficult to induce people to leave off habits, even when those habits are known to be injurious and shorten the existence of the human body. ”