Tag Archives: Drug Abuse

cough medicine abuse

Robo-Tripping: Dangers of Teens Abusing Cough Medicine

July 19, 2016

Understanding dangers of abusing cough medicine.

Abuse of cough medicine often known by a street name; Robo-tripping, is becoming popular among teens. Found in both syrup and tablet form, children, as well as teenagers are fond of taking the medicine in larger amounts so as to change the way they feel. Your kid can adopt such behavior from school or at home while hanging out with his or her peers.

At first, he or she won’t be doing this to get some relief, but to impress his or her friends. With time, he or she will get addicted to it and will do anything to access the drug. Sadly, cough medicine unlike all other illegal drugs legal, meaning that they can access it easily without raising eyebrows.

The drug consists of an ingredient called Dextromethorphan that works best to keep away coughs. However, if taken in large amounts, it might do more than just treating your cough. According to experts, taking the drug for a long time will lead to addiction.

Research findings from National Institute of Drug show that up to 48,000 students that include a good number of 12th graders abuse the drug which they can easily access in a chemist shop or via doctor’s prescription. Unfortunately, most of them take up to 50 times the required dose so as to experience their desired feelings.

What Are The Risks?

Taking a cough medicine is just as lethal and unacceptable as the use of any other illegal drug. Depending on the dosage taken, the effects may vary. According to some teens, it is one of the mildest stimulants. They also claim that it can cause hallucinations and many other effects similar to other illegal drugs.

These effects can last up to 6 hours. In the meantime, abusers risk injuring themselves or others. But this will only happen if the dosage is taken beyond what is prescribed. Other effects may include, abnormal heartbeat, headaches, numbness, seizures, nausea. Unconsciousness or even worse, death. Among the most common culprits according to authorities are schools.

cough medicine abuse

Symptoms to watch out for

  • Blurred vision
  • Slurred speech
  • Hallucinations
  • Numbness in toes and fingers
  • Dizziness
  • Vomiting and more

The best way to deal with cough medicine abuse is to avoid it. It is important for parents to talk to their kids more often to prevent them from using the drug wrongly. Letting your children know the dangers earlier discourages them from adopting the behavior. Involving a counselor might also work.

Because your kids might still be growing, it is always important to watch out each and every step they take to ensure that they are not using anything that may harm them. Cough medicine and other medicines are not exempted. The moment, you realize they are using the drug medicine wrongly, it is important to act immediately. Confront them if you can so as to find out what they have been using and why. Let them know the effects and dangers. Remember, prevention is better than cure.

 

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drug abuse

Prescription Drug Abuse Facts

July 16, 2016

Nowadays almost every drug is abused. And this includes prescription drugs such as anti-anxiety medicines, stimulants and painkiller and much more. Taking prescription drugs in large amounts may lead to several effects similar to what drug abusers often experience from other illegal drugs. Unfortunately, being legal doesn’t mean they are safe to take in large amounts. The main reasons, doctors are too strict on the dosage, is the fact that taking more or less than what is recommended might either lead to serious health problems or fail to work as specified.

According to 2011 data by Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people who died as a result of prescription drug abuse surpassed the number of those who died as a result of heroin, cocaine and all other illegal drugs in the same year. This means that prescription drug abuse is popular than any other illegal drug abuse.

Each and every year, over 500, 000 visits and 15,000 deaths occur annually as a result of opioid dependence. Such drugs have led to many accidental deaths that include traffic accidents. Among the most common addictive prescription drugs include oxycodone, oxymorphone as well as hydrocodone.

Treatment of Chronic Pain Using Addictive Prescription Drugs

As a result of the findings that opioids had some addictive effects and would if taken in large amounts lead to serious illnesses, health experts decided that it would be better used to treat terminally ill cancer patients. Nowadays, doctors see it as one of the best options for treating pain. They are often used on patients who are recovering from surgery to prevent the pain that they have to go through during the process.

drug abuse

Sadly, continuous use of the drug even without bad intention will lead to addiction. The other bad news is that it is common among all ages putting it on the top list of the most abused prescription drugs. Studies even show that it is the veterans that make a larger percentage.

How legal is it?

One of the thing that makes abuse of prescription drugs quite complex is the fact that it is hard to distinguish between the time when it is right to use them and when not to. Most of the times, you’ll find them in a possession of any person who was previously sick and had to use the drug. Unfortunately, most of them don’t intent to use the drugs alone. They will give the drug to any other family member whenever they feel it is right to give them.

Prescription Drug Abuse versus the Government

Misuse of prescription drugs has become a threat to public health. As a result, the government has chosen to chase after those responsible for their supply as well as those who go out and buy them in hiding.

The point is, prescription drug abuse has become a big problem, not only because people use them in hiding but also because they are partly legal. It is harder to realize the intent of the person buying the drug especially if he or she had medical issues in the past. The only way to reduce the deaths that occur as a result of prescription drug abuse is to be an example, and this starts with you.

 

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Drug-Abuse

Drug Abuse

July 15, 2016

A critical look at drug abuse and how to get help

Drug Abuse can be defined as a habitual use of illegal or addictive drugs. Addicts take drugs, not for medical purposes but to alter the state of their minds and body. It involves taking illegal drugs such as heroin, ecstasy, heroin or cannabis. It may also include the unlimited use of legal drugs such as painkillers, tranquilizers as well as sleeping pills. In short, substance abuse means using a particular drug wrongly. For example, using a syrup without following your doctor’s prescriptions is considered drug abuse.

Among the consequences often overlooked by drug abusers are high risks of injury or death that might result from an overdose. It might also damage your brain, liver, mental health, encourage aggression or even worse, an accident. Drug abuse does not only cause harm to you but may also affect your relationship with friends and family. Lastly, it might lead to incarceration accompanied by heavy fines.

What happens is, ones the drug being abused gets into the system, the victim loses control. He or she won’t be okay until a drug is administered. He or she will steal or get involved in dirty jobs such as sex so as to get the drug. And this is where the drug abuser might end up injured, in prison or dead.

Drug abuse is a widespread habit among young people, who aren’t well aware of what it can do to their future. Several studies show that a significant percentage of people aged from 15 to 24 die as a result of drug abuse or excessive use of alcohol. Also, drug abuse makes it easier for them to participate in crimes such as rape, murder or assault. Some of them just take the drug to deal with anxiety. Unfortunately, drug abuse has its pre-planned effects.

drug abuse

Among the signs of drug abuse in young individuals include bad performance in school, awkward behaviours or joining a new group in the name of friends. Other symptoms include a nagging cough, changes in sleeping and eating patterns and habits or red eyes that weren’t there before. Most of the time drug abusers will hide their new habits making it harder for you to detect their change in behaviour. And the only time you’ll realize that they are using the drug is the time they can’t control it. It is, therefore, important to always watch the moves made by your kid to prevent them from becoming addicts.

The best way to deal with drug abuse at its later stages is hiring a helping hand from a specialist with all the experience needed. There are a variety of treatment options that will be determined by the needs of the patient or the drug he or she has been using. Drug abuse treatment often includes medication and psychological therapy intended to help the patient withdraw from drug use. Among the areas that should be considered during medication include long-term rehabilitation as well as prevention of relapse where the specialists will have to monitor the behavioural change of the patient for a specified period. However, all these occurrences depend on the steps you take to ensure your kid doesn’t even think of abusing any drug.

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cocaine-addiction1

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs

July 12, 2016
Specific neurotransmitters

With good treatment, Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs can be eliminated for a greater freedom.

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs: What is neurotransmission?

For us to better understand the specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs, we must appreciate certain facts. Like for instance, any victim of substance abuse experiences directly reflects on the functional roles of a given neurotransmitter whose activity is being disrupted. Each individual neuron manufactures one or more neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, or any one of a dozen others that scientists have discovered to date. Each neurotransmitter is associated with particular effects depending on its distribution among the brain’s various functional areas. Dopamine, for example, is highly concentrated in regions that regulate motivation and feelings of reward, accounting for its importance in compulsive behaviors such as drug abuse.

A neurotransmitter’s impact also depends on whether it stimulates or dampens activity in its target neurons says doctor Dalal Akoury, MD, President and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center. It is also worth noting that ordinarily, some drugs will disrupt one neurotransmitter or class of neurotransmitters. Like for instance, those individuals who are struggling with opioid may experience changes which are similar and more noticeable than those that accompany normal fluctuations in the brain’s natural opioid-like neurotransmitters, endorphin and enkephalin: increased analgesia, decreased alertness, and slowed respiration. Other drugs interact with more than one type of neurotransmitter.

Because a neurotransmitter often stimulates or inhibits a cell that produces a different neurotransmitter, a drug that alters one can have secondary impacts on another. In fact, the key effect that all abused drugs appear to have in common is a dramatic increase in dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens leading to euphoria and a desire to repeat the experience. For example, nicotine stimulates dopamine-releasing cells directly by stimulating their acetylcholine receptors, and also indirectly by triggering higher levels of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that acts as an accelerator for neuron activity throughout the brain.

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs: Changes which occurs with chronic drug abuse

During the early phase of an individual’s drug experimentation, specific neurotransmission normalizes as intoxication wears off and the substance leaves the brain. Eventually, however, drugs wreak changes in cellular structure and function that lead to long-lasting or permanent neurotransmission abnormalities. These alterations underlie drug tolerance, addiction, withdrawal, and other persistent consequences.

Some longer term changes begin as adjustments to compensate for drug-induced increases in neurotransmitter signaling intensities. For example, drug tolerance typically develops because sending cells reduce the amount of neurotransmitter they produce and release, or receiving cells withdraw receptors or otherwise dampen their responsiveness. Scientists have shown, for example, that cells withdraw opioid receptors into their interiors (where they cannot be stimulated) when exposed to some opioid drugs; when exposed to morphine, however, cells appear instead to make internal adjustments that produce the same effect reduced responsiveness to opiate drugs and natural opioids. Over time, this and related changes recalibrate the brain’s responsiveness to opioid stimulation downward to a level where the organ needs the extra stimulation of the drug to function normally; without the drug, withdrawal occurs.

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs: What is neurotransmission?

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Addiction

Creating an Understanding of Drug Abuse and Drug Addiction

July 10, 2016

Drug addiction has for a long time been confused with lack of moral principles. In fact, there are a few claims that it can be controlled by change of behaviour. The truth is, quitting a drug is one of the most difficult tasks you can give an addict. Unlike any other diseases, it takes control of your whole body. And before you know it, you’ll have lost your job; you won’t be in a position to take care of your family or the worst, you’ll have turned into a criminal. In short, once you are an addict, it will take more than your inner being to come out of it.

What is drug addiction?

Drug addiction can be simply defined as a relapsing brain illness featuring compulsive drug use despite the obvious risks.  Once you are addicted, you can’t control it and the only time you feel normal is after taking the drug. With time, the impulse to use the drug becomes intense in such a way you can’t resist.

The good news is, drug addiction has its remedies. According to several studies, practices such as meditation having behavioural therapy has proven to work for many addicts.

Just like other chronic relapsing diseases such as heart disease, drug addiction is manageable. However, depending on the steps you are willing to take, you can either refrain completely or relapse and start using the drug again. But this doesn’t mean that the treatment has failed. The right step to take when this happens is to reinstate or adjust the treatment so as to bring the addict back to his or her feet.

What does drug do to your brain?

Drugs have chemicals that invade the communication system in your brain and alter the way nerve cells work. They disrupt the way information is sent, received and processed. To do this, they can either imitate the natural chemical messengers of your brain or overstimulate its reward circuit.

drug addiction

For example, the structure of drugs such as heroin resembles your brain’s chemical messengers named neurotransmitters. As a result, they can confuse the receptors in your brain and stimulate nerve cells to send messages. The more you continue using the drug, the more such reaction becomes powerful. And after some time, it will appear normal to you.

Factors that influence drug addiction

Drug addiction can be influenced by many things that may include, the environment you are raised, your stage of development or your biology. However, the decision to start using the drug depends on the level of risk.

Environmental risks: The lifestyle of the people around you that might be characterized by peer pressure, sexual abuse and much more.

Biological risk: That is if the genes that you are born with encourages drug use.

Stage of development risks: The earlier you start taking a drug, the more chances you won’t be able to control it in future.

Prevention Is the Most Effective Cure

According to findings from research funded by NIDA, preventing the use of drug use in schools, families and the community is the most effective way to control drug addiction. So, it is vital for parents and teachers to educate their kids on consequences and carry out programs that will discourage them from using drugs.

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