Lecture 1 and 2 Flashcards
Psychoactive drugs:
Any single chemical compound that interacts with the function of our central nervous system [i.e. the brain and spinal cord], and changes subjective experience or behaviour, or both. Also described as mood altering, as they can change the way we think, feel or act.
Classification of psychoactive drugs:
They are classified according to the effects they have on the central nervous system.
Depressants:
Supress, inhibit or decrease central nervous system activity. Drugs in this category include alcohol, sedatives, hypnotics [sleeping pills], and opioid drugs such as heroin, morphine and methadone. Generally, if taken in small doses, these drugs produce relaxation or drowsiness. In large doses they can lower respiration and heart rate to the point of unconsciousness or death.
Stimulants
Enhance or increase activity in the CNS. These drugs typically increase blood pressure and heart rate, increase respiration and generally increase arousal. Drugs in this category include amphetamines. MDMA, ecstasy, cocaine, caffeine and nicotine. In low doses they can increase energy, feeling of well-being and alertness. Heavy use can result in irritability and insomnia. Stimulants can also produce delusions and hallucinations.
Hallucinogens:
Sometimes referred to as psychedelics, act on the CNS to alter perceptions, thinking, feelings and sense of time and place. Some of the adverse effects include unpleasant and frightening hallucinatory experience, post-hallucinogen perception disorder [flashbacks], delusions and paranoia. Drugs in this category include LSD, mescaline and psilocybin [magic mushrooms]. Cannabis may have hallucinogenic and or depressant effects.
Most commonly used drugs:
1) Cannabis
2) Ecstasy
Self-medication hypothesis:
The use of unprescribed medications or illegal drugs to relieve stress, anxiety or other distressful psychological states.
Normative drug use:
Expectations about drinking or other drug use based on perceived use by peers. For example, if a young person forms the view that everyone is using a drug, this may increase the likelihood that they will also use it to conform to what they perceive to be the norm. Perceptions of use are often far greater than actual use.
Intoxication:
A condition that follows psychoactive drug use, evidenced by disturbances in the level of consciousness, cognition, perception, judgment, affect or behaviour. Intoxication depends on the type and dose of a drug, tolerance to the drug and personal expectations about the effects of the drug.
Tolerance
This refers to the way the body gets used to the repeated administration of a drug, so that higher doses are needed to maintain the same effect.
Addiction
A term synonymous with dependence. The continual and excessive use of a drug despite the harms that it causes to the individual and others, and repeated failed attempts to stop or limit use.
Dependence liability:
The variable risk of developing dependence associated with different psychoactive drugs. For example, at a population level, the risk of developing cannabis dependence is lower than the risk associated with alcohol or cocaine use.
Maturing out:
The process whereby people who experience serious drug problems, including dependence in their younger adult years, reduce their drug intake and associated problems as they mature.
Relapse
A return to drug use or drinking after a period of abstinence, often accompanied by reinstatement of dependence symptoms. Some writers distinguish between relapse and lapse fan isolated occasion of drug use or a slip.
Chronic relapsing disorder:
Drug dependence is often perceived to be a long-term or life-long condition characterised by periods of uncontrolled use, treatment, abstinence or controlled use and relapse. This is the case for some people, but the majority do not seek treatment and resolve their dependency issues themselves.
Drug misuse:
This refers to use of a drug in a way that is likely to cause harm, usually associated with legal drugs and differentiates non-problematic from problematic use.
Harmful drug use:
A pattern of drug use that is causing physical or psychological damage to health (such as hepatitis from injecting or depression associated with alcohol use.). It also often results in social consequences.
Substance or drug dependence:
A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by a need for increasing amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication, the need to continue to take the substance in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms, unsuccessful attempts to stop or cut down the drug use, and continued use despite harmful consequences.
Substance use disorders:
The term used by the American Psychiatric Association (2000) in the Diagnostic and statistical manual to describe a condition that includes substance abuse and substance dependence.
Alcoholic
A term consistent with a disease theory of dependence that describes a person experiencing alcohol dependence.
Addict
A person who is addicted to or dependent on a psychoactive drug. It implies a lack of control over use of the drug.
Brief History of AOD in Australia:
• Before colonisation, Aboriginal peoples had only limited contact with psychoactive substances – some plant-based stimulants and depressants used.
• First Fleet: medicines, drugs and hemp seeds for protection “warm climates and tropical diseases”
• For 150 years early governments actively supported the growing of hemp
– land and other grants
– popular as a medicine
– used as an intoxicant by members of the literati
• Drug use in the late 1800s was mainly opium and cocaine-based stimulants
– used by doctors / nurses, the middle-upper class, housewives (for depression + menstrual pain)
– and then later by Chinese immigrants.
Alcohol
– Heavy drinking has been a ‘cultural norm’ since colonisation.
– 1808: Rum Rebellion
– 1830s: ‘the Temperance Movement’ peaking during World War I/Great Depression
• Prohibition in states of Australia
• 1837, laws were passed to prevent Aboriginal access to alcohol
– “six o’clock swill”
7 Themes common to drug wars:
- The notion of public menace
- Political interests
- Increased criminal justice response
- Influence of media coverage
- Portrayal of drug use as infectious
- The need to protect vulnerable target groups e.g. women and young people
- Aggressive, militaristic terminology
Pharmacology: The effect a drug has on someone depends on the: (3 things)
Person Age Gender Individual health Cognitions/expectations
Drug How it’s taken (Oral, IV, smoked etc…) Amount used Frequency of use Duration of use/history Drug interactions
Environment
Social factors
Pharmacokinetics
has to do with absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of a drug, or ‘what the body does to the drug’
Pharmacodynamics
has to do with the biochemistry, pharmacology, and effects of the drug, or ‘what the drug does to the body’
Absorption
Via the skin (e.g. Patches, absorbed through skin into circulation)
Oral (Small intestine – Liver – Circulation)
Smoked (Mouth/lung lining – Circulation)
IV (Directly into circulation)
Distribution
Organs with high blood flow first (Brain etc…)
Fat, muscles and skin later
Drug dependence/neuroadaptation
After period of continual use can become dependant on a drug
Social, psychological, not just physical dependence
