Drug misuse Flashcards
What are the effects of cocaine?
- stimulant and euphoriant
- increased alertness and energy
- increased confidence and impaired judgement
- lessens appetite and desire for sleep
What are the negative effects of cocaine?
- damage to nose and airways
- convulsions with respiratory failure
- cardiac arrhythmia’s and MI
- hypertension and CVA
- toxic confusion
- paranoid psychosis
What are the withdrawal effects of cocaine?
- Depression
- Irritability
- Agitation
- Craving
- Hyperphagia
- Hypersomnia
What are the effects of amphetamine use?
- Effects similar to cocaine but longer lasting
- Toxic confusion occasionally with convulsions and death
- Amphetamine psychosis in heavy chronic use
What are the effects of heroin use?
- Analgesia
- Drowsiness and sleep
- Respiratory depression
- Cough reflex depression
- Sensitization of the labyrinth with nausea and vomiting
- Decreased sympathetic outflow (bradycardia and hypotension)
- Lowering of body temperature
- Pupillary constriction
- Constipation
What are the negative effects of heroin use?
- Respiratory arrest with a pulse (almost pathognomic of opiate overdose in adults)
- Pinpoint pupils unreactive to light
- Snoring giving way to shallow respiration (<8 breaths/min)
- Bradycardia and hypotension
- Varying degree of reduced consciousness/coma
What are the effects of opiate use?
Intense but transient feeling of pleasure
- “A rush”
- Almost orgasmic
- Physical and emotional anaesthetic
What are the side-effects of opiate use?
First time - nausea/vomiting and headache
Medium term - phlebitis
- Anorexia
- Constipation
Longer term - tolerance
- Withdrawal
- Social and health problems
What is opiate withdrawal syndrome?
- craving
- insomnia
- yawning
- muscle pain and cramps
- increased salivary, nasal and lacrimal secretions
- dilated pupils
- piloerection (hence ‘cold turkey’)
What are the benefits of methadone maintenance?
- decriminalises drug use
- allows normalisation of lifestyle
- reduces iv misuse
- leakage on to the illicit market
What are the effects of MDMA?
- likened to mixture of LSD and amphetamine
- euphoria followed by feeling of calm
- increased sociability
- inability to distinguish between what is and isn’t desirable
- effects after 20 mins lasting 2-4 hours
What are the side-effects of MDMA use?
- Nausea and dry mouth
- increased blood pressure and temperature
- in clubs users risk dehydration
- large doses can cause anxiety and panic
- drug induced psychosis
- ? liver and brain cell damage
What are the psychological effects of cannabis use?
- relaxing or stimulating
- euphoriant
- increases sociability and hilarity
- increases appetite
- changes in time perception
- synaesthesia
in higher dose - anxiety , panic , persecutory ideation, hallucinatory activity
What are the ill effects of cannabis use?
- respiratory problems as with tobacco
- toxic confusion
- exacerbation of major mental illness
- ? cannabis psychosis
What are the side-effects of steroid use?
- Skin – acne, stretch marks, baldness
- Feminisation in males with hypogonadism and gynaecomastia (occasioning use of anti-oestrogens)
- Virilisation in women including hirsutism, deep voice, clitoral enlargement, menstrual irregularities, hair thinning
- Cardiovascular – increased cholesterol and hypertension
- Growth deficits due to premature closure of epiphyses
- Liver Disease – cholestatic jaundice, liver tumours
