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Drugs & Consciousness

Drugs & Consciousness. Psychoactive Drugs. Interact with the Central Nervous System to alter a person’s mood, perception, and behavior Stimulants (caffeine) Depressants (alcohol) Hallucinogens (marijuana, LSD). How Drugs Work.

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Drugs & Consciousness

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  1. Drugs & Consciousness

  2. Psychoactive Drugs • Interact with the Central Nervous System to alter a person’s mood, perception, and behavior • Stimulants (caffeine) • Depressants (alcohol) • Hallucinogens (marijuana, LSD)

  3. How Drugs Work • Drug molecules in the blood act like neurotransmitters and hook onto dendrites of neurons and send out their own signals • Alcohol may tell nerve cells not to fire • LSD causes circuits in the brain to fire simultaneously

  4. Marijuana • Effects of the drug vary from person to person • Can be pleasant or unpleasant • Sensory experiences seem augmented • Colors are brighter, smells are stronger • Ordinary events take on more significance • May bring on psychological disturbances in unstable people • Addiction is psychological rather than physical • Damage to lungs is more harmful than cigarettes • Disrupts memory function

  5. Hallucinations • Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or feeling things that don’t exist • Can be caused by meditation, withdrawal, dreams, lack of sleep, periods of high emotion, concentration or fatigue • Are very much alike from person to person

  6. Hallucinogens • Create a loss of contact with reality • Ex: False body image • LSD • Most potent hallucinogen • One of the most powerful drugs known • 100-300 micrograms produces a “trip” that lasts from 6-14 hrs • Often dissolved into sugar cubes or strips of paper

  7. LSD Trip • Perceptions are quite intense and rapidly changing • Expectations, mood, beliefs and circumstances under which they take LSD all affect the experience • Ex: Walls can pulsate and breath, sounds may be seen, visual stimuli may be heard

  8. Results in impaired thinking, panic (to the point of going mad), and flashbacks

  9. Opiates • Pain killers (morphine, opium, and heroin) • Regular use can create a physical addiction • Overdose can cause respiratory failure

  10. Alcohol • The most widely used and abused mind-altering substance • Immediate effect is a loosening of inhibitions • Actually a depressant despite its stimulating effect • People act without social restraint • Effects depend on the amount, frequency, and drinker’s body weight • Slurred speech, blurred vision, and impaired judgment & memory

  11. Prolonged heavy use can result in change of personality, liver and brain damage • Studies suggest that not all early effects of alcohol are the result of alcohol but from social effects

  12. Drug Abuse & Treatment • Abusers are people who regularly use illegal drugs and excessively use legal drugs • Risks associated with abuse: • Death, injury, damage to health, legal consequences, destructive behavior, and loss of control

  13. Treatment involves the following steps: • Must admit they have a problem • Enter treatment program or get therapy • Must remain drug free • Join support groups (AA) to help fight the temptation • These groups help prevent the likelihood of a relapse

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