Drug and Alcohol Facts

Alcohol

Alcohol increases one’s risk for many deadly diseases.
Drinking too much alcohol too quickly can lead to alcohol poisoning, which can lead to death.
On average, it takes 2 to 3 hours for a single drink to leave the body. Nothing can speed up the process, including drinking coffee, taking a cold shower or “walking it off.”
People who begin drinking by age 15 are five times more likely to abuse or become dependent on alcohol than those who begin drinking after age 20.
Alcohol kills 6.5 times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined.
Traffic crashes are the greatest single cause of death for all persons age 6-33. About 45% of these fatalities are alcohol-related crashes.
Kids between 12 and 14 that live in smaller towns are 104% more likely to use meth than those who live in larger cities.
Alcohol is absorbed by the stomach, enters the blood stream, and goes to all tissues.
Even at low doses, alcohol significantly impairs judgment and coordination.
Low to moderate doses of alcohol can increase the incidence of a variety of aggressive acts, including domestic violence and child abuse.
Long-term effects of consuming large quantities of alcohol can lead to permanent damage to vital organs such as the brain and liver.

Cocaine

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant.
Cocaine is often snorted as a powder, converted to a liquid form for injection with a needle, or processed into a crystal form and smoked.
Cocaine is a powerful nervous system stimulant.
Cocaine is highly addictive.
Cocaine makes a person feel paranoid, angry, hostile, and anxious.
Cocaine users experience insatiable hunger, aches, insomnia/oversleeping, lethargy, and persistent runny nose, and are often described as very unpleasant.
Depression and suicidal ideation may develop in very heavy users.
Cocaine can cause heart attacks, seizures, strokes, and respiratory failure.
Cocaine can permanently damage nasal tissue.
Slang terms for Cocaine include: Coke, Dust, Toot, Snow, Blow, Sneeze, Powder, Lines, Rock, Crack.

Club Drugs

The term “Club Drugs” refers to a wide variety of drugs often used at all-night dance parties (“raves”), nightclubs, and concerts.
Club Drugs can damage the neurons in your brain, impairing senses, memory, judgment, and coordination.
Common effects include loss of muscle and motor control blurred vision, and seizures.
Club Drugs like Ecstasy are stimulants that increase your heart rate and blood pressure and can lead to heart or kidney failure.
Other Club Drugs can cause drowsiness, unconsciousness, or breathing problems.
Club Drugs like GHB and Rohypnol are used in “date rape” and other assaults because they are sedatives that can cause unconsciousness and immobilization.
Rohypnol can cause a kind of amnesia. Users may not remember what they said or did while under the effects of the drug.
Slang terms for Club Drugs include: Ecstasy: E, X, KTC. GHB: Liquid Ecstasy, Liquid X, Georgia Home Boy. Ketamine: K, Special K, Ket, Vitamin K, Kit Kat. Rohypnol: Roofies, R-2.

Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens change the way the brain interprets time, reality, and the environment around the user.
Hallucinogens affect the way one moves, reacts to situations, think, hear, and see.
Hallucinogens make one think that one is hearing voices, seeing images, and feeling things that don’t exist.
The use of hallucinogens leads to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
Hallucinogens can cause heart and lung failure, and can cause a coma.
Hallucinogens cause a person to feel confused, suspicious, and disoriented.
Slang terms for Hallucinogens include: Lysergic acid diethylamide: LSD, Acid, Blotter. Psilocybin: Magic Mushrooms, Shrooms. Phencyclidine: PCP, Angel Dust, Boat, Ozone, Wack. Ecstasy: E, X, XTC.

Heroin

Heroin enters the brain, where it is converted to morphine and binds to receptors known as opioid receptors.
Heroin is highly addictive because it enters the brain so rapidly. It particularly affects those regions of the brain responsible for producing physical dependence.
Heroin slows down the way a person thinks, slows down reaction time, and slows down memory.
Heroin is the most frequently reported drug by medical examiners in drug abuse deaths.
Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, and liver or kidney disease.
Pulmonary complications may result from the poor health of the abuser as well as from heroin’s depressing effect on respiration.
Street heroin often contains toxic contaminants or additives that can clog the blood vessels leading to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain causing permanent damage to vital organs.
Heroin users are at risk of contracting HIV, Hepatitis B and C, and other diseases from sharing needles.
Slang terms for Heroin include: Smack, Horse, Mud, Brown Sugar, Junk, Black Tar, Big H, Dope, Skag.

Marijuana

Marijuana is a mind-altering substance produced from a plant with the scientific name Cannabis sativa.
Marijuana’s primary active chemical, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), may induce relaxation and heighten the senses.
Marijuana generally refers to the dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of the cannabis plant.
Marijuana smoke deposits four times more tar in the lungs and contain 50 to 70 percent more cancer-causing substances than tobacco smoke.
Marijuana can limit the body’s ability to fight off infection.
Heavy marijuana use has been linked to depression, anxiety, and personality disturbances.
Marijuana can be laced with substances such as PCP, formaldehyde, or codeine cough syrup without the users knowledge.
Marijuana can cause health problems, such as chronic coughing, chest colds, lung infections, breathing problems, and cancer.
Marijuana affects coordination, reaction time and judgment raising your risk of injury or death.
Slang terms for Marijuana include: Weed, Pot, Grass, Reefer, Ganja, Mary Jane, Blunt, Joint, Roach, Nail.

Methamphetamine

Crystal Meth has become the most dangerous drug problem of small town America.
Most Meth users get hooked the first time they snort, smoke, or inject meth.
Short-term effects of meth can cause mind and mood changes such as anxiety, euphoria, and depression.
Long-term effects can include chronic fatigue, paranoid or delusional thinking, and permanent psychological damage.
Meth creates a false sense of energy, and can push the body faster and further than it’s meant to go. It increases the heart, blood pressure, and risk of stroke.
Meth is a powerfully addictive drug that can cause aggression and violent or psychotic behavior.
Meth can cause irreversible damage to blood vessels in the brain.
The ignitable, corrosive, and toxic nature of the chemicals used to produce meth can cause fires, produce toxic vapors, and damage the environment.
Meth users who inject the drug and share needles are at risk for acquiring HIV/AIDS.
Slang terms for Methamphetamine include: Speed, Meth, Crystal, Crank, Tweak, Go-fast, Ice, Glass, Uppers, Black Beauties.

Inhalants

Inhalants include a large group of chemicals that are found in such household products as aerosol sprays, cleaning fluids, glue, paint, paint thinner, gasoline, propane, nail polish remover, correction fluid, and marker pens.
Inhalants are substances or fumes from products such as glue or paint thinner that are sniffed or “huffed” to cause an immediate high.
Inhalants affect the brain with much greater speed and force than many other substances; they can cause irreversible physical and mental damage.
Inhalants starve the body of oxygen and force the heart to beat irregularly and more rapidly.
People who use inhalants can experience nausea and nosebleeds; develop liver, lung, and kidney problems; and lose their sense of hearing or smell.
Chronic use can lead to muscle wasting and reduced muscle tone and strength.
Chronic inhalant abusers may permanently lose the ability to perform everyday functions like walking, talking, and thinking.
Inhalants can kill a person instantly, and sometimes the very first time one uses them.
Inhalant users can die by suffocation, choking on their own vomit, or having a heart attack.
Slang terms for Inhalants include: Glue, Kick, Bang, Sniff, Huff, Poppers, Whippets, Texas Shoeshine.

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana.
Tobacco, in consumption, most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or dipping tobacco.
Tobacco cigarettes contain nicotine-a highly addictive substance.
Smoking tobacco is the most common cause of lung cancer, and is the leading cause of cancer in the mouth, throat, bladder, pancreas, and kidneys.
Smokeless tobacco contains 28 ingredients that can cause cancer in the lips, tongue, cheeks, gums, and the top and bottom of the mouth.
The 200 known poisons in cigarette smoke affect one’s normal development and can cause life-threatening diseases, such as chronic bronchitis, heart disease, and stroke.
Each year in the United States, cigarette smoking accounts for 440,000 deaths.
More deaths are caused each year by tobacco than by all deaths from HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murder combined.
Each year, roughly 3,000 non-smokers die from lung cancer due to secondhand smoke.
Tobacco stains teeth and nails, dulls skin and hair, and causes the skin to age prematurely, and can cause hair loss.
Slang terms for Tobacco include: Smokes, Cigs, Butts, Smokeless Tobacco: Chew, Dip, Spit Tobacco, Snuff.

Drug facts taken from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Prevention