Cocaine is a stimulant, and its affects appear almost immediately after consumption. Cocaine usually makes the user experience euphoria, a sense of energy, talkativeness, and makes them feel mentally alert. Besides the short-term effects of the drug stated above, cocaine is associated with a variety of cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure, and can cause extreme chest pain. When cocaine is consumed, the heart rate and blood pressure increase. Dailymail.co.uk refers to cocaine as the ‘perfect heart attack’ and found that recreational cocaine users have higher blood pressure, smaller arteries, and thicker heart muscles.
Although heroin is even more effective as a painkiller than morphine and codeine, it is so highly addictive that its use is illegal. Heroin can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the preference of the user and the purity of the drug. Heroin can be injected into a vein or a muscle, smoked in a water pipe or standard pipe, mixed in a marijuana joint or regular cigarette, inhaled and smoked through a straw, known as "chasing the dragon," or snorted as powder. The most feared drug by many, yet for others its powerful "high" offers the most dramatic way of escaping the realities of everyday life. It is the drug that immediately comes to mind when people talk about substance dependence.
Common short term effects are the constriction of pupils, drowsiness, apathy, slow breathing and dilation of blood vessels. Confusion and a persistent itching sensation can be effects too. Such slow breathing may cause a user to slip into a coma as well as nerve damage from convulsions. After using this drug, users usually get addicted to the euphoric feeling and go from inhaling to injection. Users build up a tolerance and give way to a physical dependency upon the drug, making the addict need larger and larger doses.
“Society Makes Us Human” Lindsey Brown SOC 210 March 23, 2013 Case #1: The “Genie” Case The Situation In November of 1970, a young thirteen year old girl was discovered by a social worker in Los Angeles, California after her mother actually called and requested services. After some investigation it was uncovered that her parents and her brother had ignored the young girl (dubbed “Genie” to protect her identity) for most her life. Her father beat her when she made a noise, and only acknowledged her to bark or growl at her. “Genie” spent most of her life strapped to a potty-chair, barely able to move her feet and hands. Length of Confinement “Genie” spent all thirteen years of her life being physically, verbally, and mentally abused.
The third principle is, the size and quality of the drug’s effect depends on it’s dosage. For example, if someone were to use cocaine (an illicit drug) as a local anesthetic, it would be a small dosage and would numb the area for a small amount of time. However, if someone were to take a large dosage of cocaine, there heart rate will increase, they will feel more sociable and active. But the main feeling they will experience is euphoria. The dosage of the drug can be very critical on it’s affect.
After a while, users need higher doses to get the same effect. This leads to dependence and addiction for those users of the drug. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 43 percent of ecstasy users become dependent on the drug. Users are aware of the negative consequences of ecstasy, but their dependence on it prevents them from stopping to use the drug. However, Ecstasy is used medicinally to relieve victims of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Whatever the method of taking it in, cocaine quickly enters the bloodstream and travels to the brain. Deep in the brain, cocaine interferes with the chemical messenger’s neurotransmitters that nerves use to communicate with each other. Cocaine blocks nor epinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters from being reabsorbed. The resulting chemical buildup between nerves causes euphoria or feeling "high." Cocaine's immediate effects wear off in 30 minutes to two hours.
The most common areas for social risk factors for drug abuse and addiction include males, being between 18 and 44 years of age, unmarried, and lower class status. The physical and psychological effects of drugs can be detrimental to someone's life. Physical effects of using drugs vary depending on the drug but intoxication with a substance can cause physical effects that range from marked sleepiness and slowed breathing as with intoxication with heroin or sedative hypnotic drugs, to the rapid heart rate of cocaine intoxication, or the tremors to seizures of alcohol withdrawal. Signs of a teenager having problems with substance abuse can be shown by a frequency of missing school or work, lack of energy and motivation, lack of interest in clothing or a lack in attempting to look nice, sudden and frequents requests for money. Other physical symptoms include an increased heart rate and blood pressure, dry mouth, red eyes, decreased coordination, slowed reaction time, and increased appetite.
I fly so fast that I end up paranoid and out of it.” As per K; she was sexually abused by an uncle at age 15. She states that her older sister was also sexually abused during that same period of time. K states that she repressed the memories of her sexual abuse for many years and only recently recovered them. Her first admission to a psychiatric hospital occurred at age 15 and she states that she has had multiple admissions thereafter including a sixth month stay at Sagamore Children’s Psychiatric Hospital. She states that her most recent psychiatric admission was at Southside Hospital where she was admitted with a diagnosis of psychosis.
Marian was 11 years old and her parents forced her to marry a blind, 41 years old. Her price was $1,200. When she was living with her husband and his mother, they began to beat her when she failed to conceived a child. After 2 years of abuse, she sought help at police station in Kabul after the police delivered her to a residential neighborhood " Women's shelters", something that was unknown in Afghanistan before 2003. Marian said she felt fortunate to have found refuge.