What is drug?

A drug is a substance that when released into the body will cause an effect, some are legal, some are
illegal, and some are prescribed by doctors to treat illnesses. whether a drug is legal or not or can be
bought without a prescription varies by country. Recreational drugs are substances that people choose
to take like for example nicotine in tobacco, alcohol or cocoa leaves in the Andes.

Types of drugs

The two types of drugs are:

1. Stimulants
stimulants give increased alertness and the speed of reactions, heart rate and blood pressure.
You can think of them as substances that speed you up. Stimulants also reduce a person's
appetite.
 caffeine found in coffee tea and energy drinks is a legal stimulant.
 Cocaine is usually an illegal stimulant and is highly addictive, as with most illegal drugs taking
too much can kill you because of an overdose.
Cocaine dramatically increases your risk of a heart attack also after taking cocaine even just
once, people will suffer what’s called a comedown, the user may feel depressed have
anxiety or panic attacks hallucinations or be unable to sleep. Cocaine is often snorted
through the nose if used long term it can damage the nose to such an extent that the user
can lose the septum of their nose.

2. Depressant
They slow down reaction times, decrease in emissions. Damaged brain cells relax users and
make them more sociable. You can think of them as substances that slows you down.
 Alcohol is a depressant another common example is
 cannabis it's usually smoked but can also be baked in cakes and made into tea. Cannabis
relaxes people but it can make it very difficult to learn or concentrate it could also cause
users to become very paranoid, anxious, and sometimes psychotic. Smoking cannabis has
been linked to mental health problems such as schizophrenia especially if it's taken during
the teenage years.

Which organ system do you think these drugs affect?

 Most recreational drugs affect the nervous system. The nervous system is made of the
central nervous system CNS which is the brain and spinal cord and the peripheral nervous
system PNS which includes any nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. Neurons or nerve
cells are specialized cells found in the nervous system.
Can you label any of the cell structures in this diagram?

Neurons carry impulses or electrical signals from one place to another in the nervous
system they connect receptors to the central nervous system or CNS and carry impulses
back through the peripheral nervous system to effector organs such as muscles and glands.

Learn more about how the nervous system helps us sense the world around us
When neurons are stimulated, they transmit an electrical impulse, they have many
adaptations to make them as efficient at this as possible.
Think of any adaptations, the axon is very long and carries an electrical impulse it's covered
by a fatty sheath made of myelin which increases the speed at which the nerve impulse is
transmitted, the nerve ending, or axon terminal is branch to make good contact with many
other neurons or the effector organ.
Two neurons do not make direct contact where they meet, there is a very small gap called
the synapse, the impulse crosses the gap by means of neurotransmitter chemicals which
diffuse across the gap between the two neurons.
Stimulants speed up synaptic transmission while depressants slow it down. Some drugs stop
the impulse from passing across the synapse completely.
Drugs such as curare the south American plant toxin used in arrow poison do this, they
cause complete paralysis and even stop the person from breathing. This substance used to
be used in anesthetics but obviously they had to use exactly the right quantity.
Other drugs stimulate the synapse so that once an impulse crosses the gap the impulse is
repeated over and over again. One example is strychnine a stimulant drug that comes from
the same genus of plants as curare it causes all the muscles in the body to go into a
continuous spasm of contraction in large quantities it can stop the person from breathing.
 HOW ALCOHOL AFFECTS YOUR DEVELOPING BRAIN?

Let’s see what happen when you introduce alcohol to this finely tuned system:
To start alcohol acts as an agonist or booster to certain chemicals in the brain's internal
reward system, that's what can give people relaxed feeling you may have heard about, but
alcohol also acts as an agonist to inhibitory neurotransmitters increasing their ability to slow
down brain functions, simultaneously it acts as an antagonist to excitatory
neurotransmitters, decreasing their ability to stimulate brain activity.
You could probably guess what happens when you combine ramped up inhibitory
neurotransmitters with dole down excitatory neurotransmitters, all of your brain’s different
parts and functions become super slow down which requires a wide range of physical
mental and emotional effects.
For example:
 if too much alcohol hits your cerebellum which is important for coordination you might lose
your balance and fall.
 if alcohol impairs your hippocampus where memories are made you might have a hard time
holding on to new information like someone's name you just met or where you left your
phone
 and when alcohol hits your cerebral cortex which has an important role in feelings and
decisions you may find it hard to control your emotions and get very sad or very angry for
apparently no reason.
Basically, as alcohol mixes with the different parts of your brain it makes it a lot harder for
them to do their specific jobs.
In time these short-term effects of alcohol wear off is alcohol leaves the system though a
drinker may experience a sick feeling known as a hangover the next day. But if a person
continues drinking too much it can have serious long-term effects the brain will begin to
chemically compensate for the way alcohol effects it and in time will start to rely on alcohol
to function normally, this can lead to dependency addiction and other serious health
problems.
As a young person with a still developing brain alcohol can have a stronger effect on you
than on adults.
Learning the facts can help you make healthy decisions so say yes to a healthy lifestyle and
no to underage drinking.
WHAT HAPPEN IF YOU ARE AN ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO ADDICT?

Alcohol is a powerful drug it contains ethanol the most common type of alcohol that helps
to reduce tension and inhibition in a person. It works by dilating small blood vessels near the
skin hence causing the person to become red, warm and feel comfortable.
Initially the alcohol affects the brain's motor center cerebellum and the medulla oblongata
resulting in the person's poor coordination and balance, sluggish reflexes changing behavior
and loss of memory, slurring of speech, increased rate of heartbeat and breathing.
Large amounts of alcohol can even lead to coma or death.
Long term effects for the alcohol addicts include malnutrition and damaged the heart
muscles, stomach disorders like ulcers and gastritis; the liver is not able to detoxify blood or
process nutrients due to liver cirrhosis other medicines interact negatively with alcohol so
any side medication can be harmful. Social and personal problems in life are likely to happen
due to the addiction.
If consumes during pregnancy fetal abnormalities and miscarriages can occur such as
reduced physical and mental development, mental retardation, birth defects.
Driving while intoxicated is illegal worldwide, alcohol consumption slows reflex time and
blurs the vision of the driver, this would then lead to overall poor judgement of the driver
resulting in fatal road accidents.

Tobacco smoking is habit forming, the smoke drawn into the lumps consists of nicotine,
carbon monoxide, tar, and other harmful substances. This is why there is a strong link
between the act of smoking and respiratory diseases.
Nicotine is a stimulant found commonly in tobacco and is responsible for causing most of
the chemical changes in the body.
Short term effects of tobacco smoking including increased heart rate and blood pressure.
Tar in the smoke affects the mucous membranes of respiratory systems.
This is why smokers cough because they try to clear their respiratory tract.
Carbon monoxide damages the lining of blood vessels while increasing fatty deposits in the
walls.
Nicotine causes blood vessels to constrict which leads to heart diseases in smaller mass it
stimulates the adrenal glands to be active.
Smokers may feel nervous and tense for no reason; new smokers can experience nicotine
poisoning whose symptoms include dizziness, vomiting, clammy skin and even fainting
spells.
The long-term use of tobacco smoking can cause breathing problems like bronchitis,
asthma, emphysema, heart disease and lung cancer.
Emphysema causes thinning or destruction of alveoli in our lungs.
Tar stains teeth and fingers and can deposit in the lungs leading to growth of cancer cells,
other chemical irritants in the smoke cause narrowing of air passages.
Smoke addiction may lead to social and personal problems.
If the addicts are pregnant women babies are smaller than birth and there is an increased
risk of miscarriage stillbirth and infant death.