Crack Cocaine, Heroin - Drug Rehab

01/09/2008

Heroin

Heroin is usually injected, snorted or smoked. It is highly addictive. Heroin enters the brain rapidly but makes people think and react slowly, impairing their decision-making ability. It causes difficulty in remembering things.

Injecting the drug can create a risk of contracting HIV, hepatitis and other diseases caused by infected needles. These health problems can be passed on to sexual partners and newborns. Heroin is one of the three most frequently cited drugs in drug abuse deaths. Violence and crime are linked to its use.

Short-term Effects of Heroin

Abusers experience clouded mental functioning, nausea and vomiting. Awareness of pain may be suppressed. Pregnant women can suffer spontaneous abortion. Cardiac functions slow down and breathing is severely slowed, sometimes to the point of death.

Long-term Effects of Heroin

Scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels, heart valves, abscesses and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease. Lung complications may result. Sharing of injection equipment or fluids may result in hepatitis B and C, HIV and other blood-borne viruses.

Cocaine and Crack Cocaine

Cocaine and crack cocaine can be taken orally, through the nose

(snorted), intravenously, or, in the case of crack, through inhalation of the fumes from heating it.

The terms used to describe ingestion include chewing, snorting, mainlining or injecting and smoking.

The word cocaine refers to the drug in a powder (cocaine) form and a crystal (crack) form. It is made from the coca plant and causes a short-lived intense high that is immediately followed by strong feelings of depression, edginess and a craving for more.

Short-term Effects Crack Cocaine

Cocaine causes a short-lived intense high that is immediately followed by the opposite — intense feelings of depression and edginess and a craving for more of the drug. People who use it often don’t eat or sleep properly. They can experience greatly increased heart rate, muscle spasms and convulsions. The drug can make people feel paranoid, angry, hostile and anxious, even when they aren’t high.

Long-term Effects of Crack Cocaine

In addition to those already mentioned, cocaine can cause irritability, mood disturbances, restlessness, paranoia and auditory hallucinations. Tolerance to the drug develops so that more is needed to produce the same “high.”

Coming down from the drug causes severe depression, which becomes deeper and deeper after each use of the drug. This can get so severe that a person will do almost anything to get the drug—even commit murder. And if he or she can’t get cocaine the depression can get so intense it can drive the addict to suicide.

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Ecstasy

Ecstasy is usually taken orally in pill, tablet or capsule form. Taking more than one at a time is called “bumping.”

Ecstasy is a synthetic drug made in a laboratory. Makers may add anything they choose to the drug, such as caffeine, amphetamines and even cocaine. Ecstasy is illegal and has effects similar to hallucinogens and stimulants. It is addictive. The pills are of different colors and are sometimes marked with cartoon-like images. Mixing ecstasy with alcohol is extremely dangerous and can be lethal.

The stimulative effects of drugs like ecstasy enable the user to dance for long periods, and when combined with the hot, crowded conditions found at raves, can lead to extreme dehydration and heart or kidney failure.

Short-term Effects of Ecstasy

•impaired judgment
•false sense of affection
•confusion
•depression
•sleep problems
•severe anxiety
•paranoia
•drug craving
•muscle tension
•involuntary teeth clenching
•nausea
•blurred vision
•faintness and chills or sweating

Long-term Effects

•Prolonged use causes long-lasting and perhaps permanent damage to the brain, affecting the person’s judgment and thinking ability. Many young people have died after using ecstasy only once.

For help with overcoming drug or alcohol addiction go to:

www.drugaddictiontreatment.ca

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