Drug classification

Drug Class Examples

Stimulants Cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine (meth), methylphenidate
(Ritalin)
Depressants Alcohol (ethanol), barbiturates, benzodiazepines (such as diazepam
[Valium]), and methaqualone (Quaalude).
Hallucinogens Peyote/mescaline, Psilocybin/psilocin, LSD, Salvia, Ayahuasca (more
potent (hybrid) varieties of marijuana, hashish, and opium that are
smoked)
Cannabis Marijuana (mild phychedelic)
Narcotics Heroin (diacetylmorphine), Opium, Morphine, Hydrocodone
Oxycodone
Cocaine - stimulant
• Cocaine - powerfully addictive stimulant drug -
Benzoylmethylecgonine.

• Coca leaves (Erythroxylon coca), the source of

cocaine

• For thousands of years, people in South America

have chewed and ingested coca leaves.

• Was even an ingredient in the early formulations of

Coca-Cola – removed in 1903.
Cocaine
• Can be administered by a doctor for legitimate medical
uses, such as local anesthesia for some eye, ear, and
throat surgeries.

• As a street drug, cocaine appears as a fine, white,

crystalline powder.

• Street name: Coke, C, Snow, Powder, Blow, white

powder, and white mosquito
Cocaine preparation
• The leaves are harvested two or three times per year and used to
produce coca paste, which contains as much as 80% cocaine.
• The paste is processed in clandestine laboratories to form a pure,
white hydrochloride salt powder.
• Often, purified cocaine is adulterated (or “cut”) with substances
such as powdered sugar, talc, and methamphetamine before it is
sold on the streets.
• Cocaine is often sold in the form of little pellets, called rocks, or as
flakes or powder.
Cocaine, Methods of use
• Cocaine can be administered orally

• Some apply to gums

• Snorting – The most common method.

• Rolled up banknotes or paper, hollowed-out pens,

cut straws, pointed ends of keys, specialized spoons,
long fingernails.

• Injected intravenously - Dissolving cocaine in water

Smoked - inhale its vapor or
smoke into the lungs.

Cocaine is smoked by
inhaling the vapor produced
when solid cocaine is heated
to the point that it
sublimates – crack pipe.
Crack Cocaine
• Freebasing is a method of reducing impurities in cocaine and
preparing the drug for smoking. It produces a type of cocaine
that is more powerful than normal cocaine hydrochloride.

• Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3, common baking soda) is

a base used in preparation of crack
Coc-H+Cl− + NaHCO3 → Coc + H2O + CO2 + NaCl
Drug combinations

• Crack cocaine may be combined

with amphetamine ("croack"); tobacco ("coolie"); marijuana
("buddha"; "caviar"; "chronic"; "woola"); heroin ("moon
rock"); and phencyclidine ("clicker")

• mixture of cocaine and heroin, known as "speedball“ -

Inhalation
Benzodiazepines - Depressant
• Benzodiazepines are among the most commonly prescribed
depressant medications.

• In medicine- Anxiety relief, muscle relaxant, anti-convulsant (sudden

muscle contractions), or an amnesiatic (mild memory-loss inducer).

• Due to their sedative properties, benzodiazepines have a high

potential for abuse (prescription).
• Commonly prescribed benzodiazepines include Xanax© (alprazolam),
Librium© (chlordiazepoxide), Valium© (diazepam), and Ativan©
(lorazepam).

• The most common method is oral, in tablet or capsule form.

LSD – Hallucinogen: Lysergic acid diethylamide

• One of the most potent mood- and perception-altering hallucinogenic

drugs.

• also known as acid, blotter, doses, hits, microdots, sugar cubes, trips,
tabs, or window panes—

• manufactured from a lysergic acid compound found in ergot, a fungus

that grows on grains.
LSD- History
• Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938.
• Hofmann was conducting research on the therapeutic value of
the lysergic acid compounds.
• Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD in 1943
when he accidentally ingested some of the drug.
• From the 1940's to the mid 1970's, LSD was extensively
researched in the psychiatric community. Psychiatric students
were encouraged to use LSD as a teaching tool to help
understand schizophrenia.
• Soon, LSD emerged as a drug of abuse by some in the psychiatric
and medical community who shared it with friends.
 LSD - preparation
• It is a clear or white, odorless, water-soluble material.
• LSD is initially produced in crystalline form, which can
then be used to produce tablets known as
“microdots”. microdots
• Thin squares of gelatin called, “window panes.”
• The most common form of LSD is as a liquid that has
been transferred onto a small paper square -"blotter“.
• It can also be diluted with water or alcohol and sold
in liquid form. The most common form, however, is
LSD-soaked paper punched into small individual
squares, known as “blotters.” window panes
Street Terms for LSD Combined With Other
Substances:
Candy-flipping, Troll - the use of LSD and MDMA
Frisco special, Frisco Speedball - LSD, cocaine,
and heroin
Cannabis - Marjuana

• Marijuana—also called weed, herb,

pot, grass, bud, ganja, Mary Jane
and a lot more….

• A greenish-gray preparation of the

dried leaves or flowers of Cannabis
sativa.
isStock.com/nicoolay
• Hand-rolled cigarettes - joints
• Rolled in cigar wraps - blunts
• Marijuana can also be used to brew tea and, particularly
when it is sold or consumed for medicinal purposes,
• Is frequently mixed into foods (edibles) such as
brownies, cookies, or candies.
• Vaporizers are also increasingly used to consume
marijuana.
• Concentrated resins containing high doses of marijuana’s
active ingredients, including honeylike hash oil,
bhangs
• used in food and drink as early as 1000 B.C. in
the Indian subcontinent
• In pipes, water pipes -
• Brewed as tea

Rajasthan Assam
cannabinoids….
• The main psychoactive (mind-altering) chemical in
marijuana, responsible for most of the intoxicating effects
that people seek, is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol - THC.

• The plant also contains more than 100 other chemicals

related to THC, called cannabinoids
Medical cannabis is found somewhat effective in chemotherapy-induced nausea and
vomiting (CINV) and may be a reasonable option in those who do not improve following preferential
treatment.

Pain
• Tentative evidence suggests cannabis maybe useful for peripheral neuropathy but evidence of
benefit is lacking for other types of long term pain.
• Llimited and weak evidence that smoked cannabis was effective for chronic non-cancer pain or for
chronic pain.

Neurological problems
• Studies of the efficacy of cannabis for treating multiple sclerosis have produced varying results.

Posttraumatic stress disorder

There is tentative evidence that medical cannabis is effective at reducing posttraumatic stress
disorder symptoms.
Illegal but not enforced
Narcotics - Heroin
• Heroin (diacetylmorphine)) is a highly addictive opioid
drug.

• It is processed from morphine, a naturally-occurring

substance extracted from the opium poppy - Papaver
somniferum.

• Plant indigenous to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

 Opium - History
• Our earliest knowledge of its cultivation dates back to the ancient Mesopotamian and
Sumerian cultures, who passed it on to the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians.

• The Greeks introduced opium to Persia and India, where it was grown in mass quantities.
•
• In the eighteenth century, the British began exporting it to China, where they traded it
for tea.

• The First Opium War began (1939), ending in the British taking Hong Kong. The Second
Opium War of 1856 made opium imports into China legal again, still against the wishes of
the Chinese government.
 Opium - History

• Heroin was synthesized from morphine by the

pharmaceutical company Bayer and was touted as a safer,
non-addictive form of morphine.

• Bayer - coined the drug's new name, "heroin," based on the

German heroisch, which means "heroic, strong".

• In 1895, the German drug company Bayer marketed

diacetylmorphine as an over-the-counter drug under the
trademark name Heroin.
Preparation…
• About three months after the poppy seeds are
planted, brightly-colored flowers bloom at the tips of
greenish, tubular stems.

• As the petals fall away, they expose an egg-shaped

seed pod. Inside the pod is an opaque, milky sap. This
is opium in its crudest form.

• The sap is extracted by slitting the pod vertically in

parallel strokes. As the sap oozes out, it turns darker
and thicker, forming a brownish-black gum. A farmer
collects the gum with a scraping knife, bundles it into
bricks, cakes or balls and wraps them.
Preparation…
• Powder varying in color from white to dark brown. – due to impurities
• Heroin purity has been classified into four grades (wiki).
No.4 is the purest form – white powder (salt) to be easily
dissolved and injected.
No.3 is "brown sugar" for smoking (base).
No.1 and No.2 are unprocessed raw heroin (salt or base).

• Smack, Dope, Junk, Mud, Skag, Brown Sugar, Brown, 'H', Big H, Horse,
Charley, China White, Boy, Harry, Mr. Brownstone, Dr. Feelgood
• Heroin is most often injected intravenously for a quick and potent
high, but there is a rising segment of users who sniff, snort, and
smoke heroin
Mainlining – injecting heroin into a vein

Skin-popping – injecting heroin just below the skin's surface

Speedballing – injecting heroin combined with cocaine

Crisscrossing – snorting heroin along with cocaine

Shabanging – sniffing liquefied heroin from nasal spray bottle

Tie-off – used to tie around the arm (to constrict blood flow) in order to make a vein
protrude
http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/heroin.asp