DIGITAL MAGAZINE
DRUGS & ADDICTIONS The evil that lurks our society
Bruzzoni-Fiorito-Val 10/11/2015
Index: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2 Different kind of drugs………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Top ten most dangerous drugs that you should be warned about…………………………………………….4 Story of life…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………….7 Top ten the most abused drugs in the world……………………………………………………………………………..8 Some figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12 Reflection area…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..13
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Introduction Every year, recreational drugs use, abuse and addiction is becoming a bigger problem, with a market that has extended like never before, and with the appearance of a large number of new drugs due to major advances in chemical and science in general. 多But what is a drug? For a professional that works on a laboratory, every chemical product that is used in his test is consider as a drug, while for a chemical, every substance is consider as a drug, even table salt. If we have to talk from the health point of view, it is consider as a drug every substance (simple or complex, natural or synthetic) that can be used for the elaboration of medicines, diagnostic means, diet products, hygienic products, cosmetics, recreational drugs, or any other product that can modify the health of living beings. If we have to classify this drugs, we can divide them between medicines (like aspirins, antibiotics, antacids, etc.) and addictive drugs or abuse or recreational drugs, which is the most common use of the term, and which can also be divided between the legal ones (such as alcohol, snuff, or multiple medicines) and illegal ones (for example, cocaine, marijuana, heroin, or methamphetamine). The objective of this web page is not only to inform about what drugs that are out there in the street, but to prevent people to consumed them (or at least be careful at the hour of interacting with them) from them knowing about what drugs are the most used, what are their side effects and their consequences, what are the restrictions on them and penalties for consuming, etc. We hope this forum to be enriching, and that it will be useful to combat this terrible evil that lurks our society.
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Different kinds of drugs Recent studies show that the drugs are classified in four groups: depressants, hallucinogens, opiates and stimulants. All these drugs are very harmful and make people act unconsciously. The purpose of this article is to describe each group and let people know the different drugs that exist. To begin with, the depressant drugs, such as alcohol, work uniquely in the brain, it is through their effect on GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) activity that produces a drowsy or calming effect. GABA works to decrease brain activity. That is why depressants are often used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders. Examples include: alcohol, Valium, Xanax, Librium, marijuana and barbiturates. On the other hand, hallucinogens are drugs which cause altered perception and feeling. They have powerful mind-altering effects and can change how the brain perceives time, everyday reality, and the surrounding environment. Examples include: LSD, PCP, MDMA (Ecstasy), mescaline, and psilocybin. The opiates are powerful painkillers. They are made from opium, a white liquid in the poppy plant. Opiates produce a quick, intense feeling of pleasure followed by a sense of well-being and calm. The regular use changes the way the brain works by changing the way nerve cells communicate with one another. If opiates are taken away from opiate-dependent brain cells, many of them will become overactive. Examples include: heroin, morphine, codeine. Finally, the stimulants are a class of drug that elevate mood, increase feelings of well-being, and increase energy and alertness. Stimulants can cause the heart to beat faster and will also cause blood pressure and breathing to elevate. Repeated use of stimulants can result in paranoia and hostility. As with many other drugs, stimulants possess very high addictive potential. Examples include: cocaine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, MDMA (Ecstasy), nicotine, and caffeine. In conclusion, the different kinds of drugs are all harmful, they cause different effects and in most of the cases, the consumer doesn’t even know the difference between them and their effects. They just get high. Source: https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/studentlife/health/promotion/goto/resources/drugclassific ations.html
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Top ten most dangerous drugs that you should be warned about Every day, more and more people is making use of drugs, either to escape from reality or just to have some fun, without knowing the side effects that these will bring to them, which ends, in the most of the cases, in horrible situations which, if they had known them before, would have prevented them to consume this substances. That`s why in this article, we are going to present the most dangerous drugs that you should be warned about, ranking them from ten to one, giving more importance to the risk that they present to the body. Number 10: Bath Salts Bath salts are is a designer or synthetic drug, which can be very difficult to recognize, since its name makes reference to a surprisingly large number of different chemical combinations. The effects of this drug are, mainly, paranoid delusions and/or hallucinations. Experts are saying it’s psychoactive, rather than hallucinogenic like acid, but the end result appears to be similar: delusional beliefs acted upon in violent ways. Number 9: Ketamine Although ketamine is most commonly known as a horse tranquilizer, it was first developed for human use. The intended use of this drug was in the beginning to replace PCP (Angel Dust), as a shorter lasting anesthetic, but instead, even though it is utilized for its original use in certain situations, nowadays it`s mostly used as an abuse drugs, causing, in a short term, incredibly powerful hallucinations, and, in a long term, a strong addiction and even also direct psychological effects and fatal overdoses. Number 8: Benzodiazepines Benzodiazepines are, as many others, a drug which is used to treat mental health problems (depression mostly) but that becomes dangerous when used in excess. The effects are, between others, slurred speech, drowsiness, and severe depression and dependency.
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Number 7: Methamphetamine The drug, which massively gained popularity after the popular TV series Breaking Bad, has an incredible number of effects that severely affect the brain's functioning, as, for example, hallucinations and memory loss. Moreover, withdrawal effects can be really difficult to deal with. Number 6: Street Methadone This is an opiate drug that acts as an antagonist in the nervous system, and it affects the neurotransmitters released in the human brain. In terms of its effects, street methadone can cause pneumonia, Hepatitis, and psychological disorders, as it can also cause respiratory depressions and even dead.
Number 5: Tobacco As it`s said before, in the introduction of this article, abuse drugs are not necessarily, illegal, and the most important of them is tobacco. Here we have a highly addictive drug that causes the slow painful death of millions worldwide every year, being the responsible for the 20% of premature deaths in the planet, and still, it`s not prohibited, although there are some laws that restricts it`s sale and propaganda. Tobacco use most commonly causes diseases affecting the heart, liver and lungs, being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (including emphysema and chronic), cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer), peripheral vascular disease and hypertension. It`s legal anyways‌ Number 4: Cocaine Known as the most popular party drug, cocaine comes next on the list of most dangerous drugs. Being one of the most addictive drugs in the world, cocaine releases massive quantities of dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter responsible for the pleasure sensation. When taken, the users of the drug feel euphoric, energetic, talkative, and mentally alert, mainly. When consumed in an overdose, cocaine can also cause death by a heart attack. In addition, withdrawal effects can hard to take too, since the body, apart from reacting mentally, also reacts physically on this situation.
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Number 3: The Devil’s Breath This drug has the power to eliminate free will and wipe out memory and is being dealt with regularly on the streets of Colombia. Scopolamine, or ‘The Devil’s Breath,’ comes from a tree common to South America. Since scopolamine is odorless and tasteless, it can be blown in the face of a passerby on the street and, within minutes, that person is under the drug’s effect. Leaving you hopeless with no free will, making you obey every order you are given. Number 2: Heroin Known by a lot of people as the queen of all drugs, heroin is a derivative of opium and is the second most dangerous drug, being responsible of thousands of deaths every year, and it`s popularity is due to the great pleasure sensation that it provokes, caused by the huge amount of dopamine that it releases in the brain (it`s about a hundred times more than the amount released during an orgasm), usually accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and a heavy feeling in the extremities, which may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and severe itching. In regard of the fatal side effects, these include shortness of breath, seizures, disorientation, abnormal behavior, cycles of knock outs and even the whole brain stops functioning at times leading to sudden death. Also, if used for long periods, the effects on the brain are irreversible. To have a reference, this drug is so powerful lighter drugs like methamphetamine are administered to reduce its withdrawal effects.
Number 1: Krokodil Finally, Krokodil, or desomorphine, is a derivative of morphine with very powerful and fastacting opioid effects, such as sedation and analgesia. We consider this drug, consumed specially by poor people in Russia that can’t afford heroin, as the worst of all because it typically contains large amounts of toxic substances as a result of being "cooked" and used without any significant effort to remove the byproducts and leftovers from synthesis, and injecting any such mixture can cause serious damage of the skin, blood vessels, bone and muscles, sometimes requiring limb amputation in long-term users, making this drug worthy of its place on the list.
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The story of my life It began when one boy get in on my previous school. We had met before because he used to practice rugby together in the club, but we weren`t friends. He had problems with drugs such as marijuana, and alcohol. In the beginning he was a common teenager, but then he began to believe that marijuana wasn`t harmful and said that alcohol was more dangerous than that drug but alcohol was frowned upon because it was legal. In summary, he became an addict. Soon after, he started to change his appearance. He made dreadlocks in his hair; the characteristic smell of pot became his perfume, and began to get thinner. It wasn`t a problem for me but when I hang out with my friends, he came and share the pot with them. I didn`t see it like a problem, but after some he didn´t agree with me about not to smoking or drinking, so he started to convince my friends that I didn`t have to hang out with them, and unfortunately, it worked. I wasn`t aware of this until my last year in that school, in which I opened my eyes and decided to leave. Unknowing what would be of me in the new school, I was not going to change my mind. I got in to the new school and fortunately I met my new friends. Nowadays I don`t know anything about that boy, but my former friends told me that he was expelled from the school, and they thought that he was drug-dealing, but I don`t believe it at all. Lautaro Fiorito.
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Top Ten Most Abused Drugs in the World Nowadays, the most worrying and common addiction in the world is drug addiction, since they are consumed by millions of people of in the world, but not all those who consume them make an abuse of them. However, a big part of the consumers do abuse of drugs, causing, in hundreds of thousands of cases, a drug addiction, and the number increases every year. The CDAC (Community Drug and Alcohol Council) recently reported the top 10 most abused drugs, which are listed below, in order of most often to least often abused. Number 10: Heroin Heroin is a highly addictive injectable drug (most commonly) that causes a feeling of an euphoric rush, and is a mainly and commonly abused in East Europe and United States.
Number 9: Methamphetamine This popular drug from the TV show “Breaking Bad”, known also as meth, crank or speed, is used specially because of the feelings of well-being and energy, which can last from 4 to 16 hours, that it produces.
Number 8: LSD LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), or “acid, is a very powerful hallucinogen (actually, is the most potent on the world), which is becoming more and more popular between young people and teenagers, since, beyond its effects, it doesn`t provoke any side effects apart from the damages caused by the accidents in which people can get involved because of these hallucinations. As
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regard of its effects, these are the alteration of the user`s mood, personality and perception of reality.
Number 7: Ecstasy Another usually consumed drug between youth people, these is a very popular drug in night clubs because of the feelings of euphoria and alert and the hallucinations that it causes. This drug affects the hydric balance of the body, so if taken with alcohol, it can provoke dehydration death.
Number 6: Inhalants This type of drug includes a relatively big variety of substances such as shoe polish, glue, gasoline, spray paint, cleaning fluid and nitrous oxid, of which only its vapors are inhaled, giving the abuser an initial loss of inhibitions, followed by drowsiness, slurred speech and agitation.
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Number 5: Cocaine Known as one of the most popular “party drugs�, cocaine is used only in the US by 1.5 million people. Its main short-term effect is a powerful sensation of euphoria, and its long-term effects are a great dependence and drug craving, as its overdose can also cause death by heart attack.
Number 4: Prescription drugs Prescription drugs effects that are similar to heroin and they are not so hard to get, since they are legal (the only thing you need is the prescription). Some of the most consumed are painkillers, such as Vicodin and OxyCodin.
Number 3: Marijuana Marijuana is the most used illicit drug, and nowadays is being legalized in different parts of the world due to the low gravity of their effects, compared with other legal drugs like snuff and alcohol. This drug is characterized for causing the loss of inhibition, dizziness, slowed reaction time, and the increase of appetite. By the other hand, although it`s not addictive, if used regularly it can cause distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, and problems with learning and memory.
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Number 2: Tobacco Consumed by nearly 30% of the world`s population, this highly addictive legal drug that contains over 4000 harmful substances when consumed in a cigarette, can cause diseases affecting the heart, liver and lungs, being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (including emphysema and chronic bronchitis), cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer), peripheral vascular disease and hypertension.
Number 1: Alcohol This drug, which is also legal, is the most abused drug in the world, being consumed by over 70% of the world population (not all of them drink it in excessive amounts), and causes the loss of inhibition, impaired coordination and judgment, slurred speech, and blackouts. When consumed in an extreme amount, it can cause an alcoholic coma and even death, and in a long term it can cause cirrhosis. It is also the number 1 causative of death because of car accidents in the world.
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Some figures... According to the numbers given by the SEDRONAR (Secretariat for the Prevention of Drug Addiction and Fight against Drug Trafficking), acquired in a period from 2001 to 2011, the consuming of drugs in Argentina increased a lot. Ecstasy rose 1200%, cocaine 300%, while solvents and inhalants the increase was 22.7%, “pasta base” 120% and Marijuana 100%. Although the marihuana was the drug with less growth, it continues being the most consumed for teenagers. But as the numbers shows, the ecstasy was the drug with most growth. Now it is in the fourth drug in the ranking of the most consumed. Taking into considerations the high levels of consumption, there is an average of 2.2 pills ingested in a same day. About 40% of students, who said that they are consumers, take 3 or more pills in one day. In the 90s the most regular age in which overdoses from heavy drugs (such as cocaine, “paco” or ecstasy) used to be given was around 31 to 35 years, but nowadays it dropped around the age of 16 to 20.
In December of 2013, the Ministry of health from Argentina made a survey with 16000 patients about the consuming of drugs. Its results show that 43 % of patients started consuming marihuana, and also they told that it was like a way to start consuming other type of drugs. Other 30% of patients claim that the cocaine was the drug that carried them to undergo a treatment to get far away from drugs. Regarding the age of the beginning of the drug use, the age provided from the Ministry of Health was between 12 and 16 years. 20.7% of teenager began when they are 13 yars, and 11.6% at the age of 12. Source: http://www.infobae.com/2014/06/27/1576597-las-alarmantes-cifras-el-consumo-drogasargentina
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Reflection area
You know that is bad for your health?
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