Midterm 2

Question 1

What are the acute effects of cannabis on heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiological systems?

Answer 1

Rise in blood pressure and heart rate.
Dilating blood vessels.
Lessening of psychological defenses
Enhanced sensory perception

Question 2

Compare and contrast the structures of morphine and fentanyl, and explain how that leads to differences in potency.

Answer 2

Morphine isn’t a synthetic opioid, whereas fentanyl is and composes of a flexible structure than can bind to receptors more efficiently.

Question 3

Discuss reasons for the opioid epidemic and the role the pharmaceutical industry has played.

Answer 3

Opioids are highly addictive
Were often overprescribed
Prescribed in large doses
Heavily marketed by pharmaceutical companies

Question 4

What is naloxone? How does it work mechanistically?

Answer 4

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that works as an emergency treatment for opioid overdose. It works by blocking or reversing the effects of the opioid agonist.

Question 5

Compare and contrast smoking/inhalation and oral-digestive routes of ingesting cannabis.

Answer 5

If cannabis is smoked/inhaled, the peak of psychoactive effects happens around 10 minutes after inhalation. By an hour it is back to baseline
If THC is eaten, the peak onset of psychoactive effects is over an hour after it is consumed and drops down slowly after consumption

Question 31

What is straight fermentation?

Answer 31

Straight fermentation usually yield beverages w/ LOWER alcohol content (4-15% as yeast strains used in fermentation can only tolerate 12-15% of alcohol before they die

Question 32

What is distillation?

Answer 32

DIstillation can yield higher alcohol contents from 20-50%

Question 33

Define LD-50

Answer 33

Lethal dose 50% - dose of a substance required to kill half the members of a tested population

Question 34

therapeutic index (TI)

Answer 34

How fast something kills someone - a measure of drug toxicity and lethality

Question 35

What is the equation used to find the Therapeutic index/?

Answer 35

Lethal dose/therapeutic dose = index
IE: ethyl alcohol (g/100ml)
0.4/0.04=10
Answer should always be a whole unit! The lower the index, the higher the lethal potential is !

Question 35

Discuss the differences in safety profiles between benzodiazepines and barbiturates.

Answer 35

Barbiturates have a small TI (more potent)
Barbiturates are no longer widely prescribed medically
Barbiturates were used for lethal injection
Benzodiazepines have higher TIs —> very widely used
However benzodiazepines have a high risk of dependence and can lead to memory or other cognitive impairments

Question 36

How does a chemical synapse work?

Question 37

Describe how alcohol content of a spirit changes throughout distillation. What is the “limit” of alcohol content in a spirit and why?

Answer 37

Distillation boils off the flavors and alcohol from straight fermented alcohol, collecting it separately from the water. It can get up to ~95% alcohol before it becomes an azeotrope and the lower boiling point of alcohol no longer holds so it can’t be further separated from the water.

Question 37

Why are tobacco and alcohol exempt from scheduling?

Answer 37

Alcohol is not a scheduled drug because of upheavals that occur after attempts of restricting alcohol intake, and because it isn’t considered a substance with potential for abuse

Tobacco was exempt from the definition of what a drug or “controlled substance” is, so it is not a scheduled drug. To be a scheduled drug a psychoactive drug needs to have abuse-potential, which tobacco apparently does not have