Drugs and Society: Heroin, Marijuana, and MDMA (Ecstasy)

Drugs and Society
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Drugs and Society
Introduction
Drugs influence many lives in the society when wrongly consumed. Normal activities of the society cannot run as required by the government institutions for economical goal achievement if drug misuse in the society is not under control. Drugs are substances other than food that when consumed, injected, dissolved under the tongue, inhaled or smoked causes change in the normal body physiology. Drugs used to cure, diagnose a disease, treat, prevent a disease or promote an individual’s health from poor state to a better state are pharmaceutical drugs (or medicine). Patients and other sick people use pharmaceutical drugs for the treatment of the disease they are suffering from until they get well or regularly for those with chronic disorders.
Classification of pharmaceutical drugs involve putting them in drug classes’ with same chemical structure, same mode of action in the human body, same body mechanism and the disease they are treating. The other class of drugs is psychoactive drugs; they are chemical substances which when consumed affect the normal functioning of the central nervous system thus changing an individual’s perception or consciousness. They drugs include alcohol, caffeine and nicotine. They are widely used by individuals as recreational drugs rather than their medical need. Other recreational drugs include Hallucinogens, amphetamines and opiates. Most of recreational drugs are illegal in most countries due to their effect in the lives of the individuals consuming them. These drugs are addictive and have negative effects to an individual’s health and development CITATION Lei14 \l 1033 (Anderson, 2014).
Due to high cases of drug misuse especially in the United States, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) decided to come up with a drug schedule through the formation Controlled Substance Act (CSA). The FDA schedules organize drugs based into the risk of individuals abusing them or the arm they impose if consumed. Controlled substance schedules consists of five categories which are annually updated depending on the relativity of abuse, level of medical use and likelihood of causing dependency if abused. Some of the drugs and their schedules are as follows.
1 Schedule I controlled substances
Schedule I drugs or chemicals are those substances with high rate of being abused and which the medical practitioners find to have no medical treatment value. These are the most dangerous of all the categories of schedule with a potential of severely affecting the user’s psychological and physical dependence. These drugs are extremely dangerous to the society. Some of the substances listed in the schedule I category are marijuana (cannabis), heroin, peyote, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), methaqualone and ecstasy.
2 Schedule II controlled substances
These are drugs or chemicals with high possibility for abuse with use possibly leading to austere psychological dependence in the victims. The Food and Drug Administration finds this drug to be dangerous to the society. Some of the substances listed in the schedule II category are cocaine, Ritalin, oxycodone, Adderall, methamphetamine, fentanyl, methadone and hydromorphone CITATION Dru16 \l 1033 (Drug Enforcement Admiistration, 2016).
3 Schedule III controlled substances
These are drugs or chemicals with moderate to low possibility for psychological or physical dependence. Schedule III abuse potentiality is less compared to that of Schedule I and Schedule II drugs substances but higher than that of Schedule IV. Some of the substances listed in the schedule III involve products with less than 90 milligrams of codeine in every dose unit, testosterone, ketamine and anabolic steroids.
4 Schedule IV controlled substance
These are drugs and substances with low possibility of abuse and low rate of risk dependence. Some of the substances in schedule IV include soma, valium, Tramadol, Ambien, Ativan, Darvon, Talwin and Darvocet.
5 Schedule V controlled substance
These are drugs and substances with lower possibility of abuse compared to schedule IV; they consist of certain preparations with limited quantities of some narcotics. Schedule V drugs help with antidiarrheal, analgesic purposes and antitussive treatment. Examples of these drugs include all cough preparations with 200 milligrams codeine and less, Lomotil, Parepectolin, Motofen and Lyrica.
The most feared category of drugs in the society are Schedule I. these drugs such as heroin, marijuana and ecstasy have negative contributions to the development of the society. These substances in Schedule I have no accepted safety use guidelines under any medical supervision. There no hospitals administer or prescribe the drugs to patients for use since they are not readily available for hospital usage CITATION Ama16 \l 1033 (Baten, 2016).
The following description of these schedule 1 substances indicates their differences and similarities on what the substance are capable of, whether they are natural or laboratory made. How do people use each of this drugs, their level of brain effects when abused, what other effects the drug causes in an individual, their form of treatment and withdrawal if victims chose to reform and their long term effects on the individual and the society. The drugs similarities and differences of these three (heroin, ecstasy and marijuana) schedule 1 controlled substances are as follows.
1 Heroin
This is a Schedule one drug according to the list of drugs by Food and Drug Administration of the United State. Heroin is made from morphine that is extracted from opium poppy, which originally was used to treat pain, diarrhea and sleepiness in patients. Diamorphine, which is heroin made by morphine is stronger than opium or morphine. Heroin is strong painkiller and often used by clubbers as a chill out. Many youths and clubbers use heroin for its effects in easing pain and stress.
Heroin is usually a white to brown like powder or a black sticky substance. Despite its prohibition from any form of usage in the United States, the Americans especially the youths keep using it. Research indicates that about 4.2 million American youths have used the substance once or more than once in their life. Most of the heroin uses end up becoming dependent on the substance thus becoming addicts of heroin CITATION Dru16 \l 1033 (Drug Enforcement Admiistration, 2016).
How do people use heroin?
There several ways of using heroin, these usages depends on the level of addiction with the victim. Heroin gets into the body system of an addict by either injection, inhaling by snorting, smoking or sniffing. These routes of administering ensures the heroin takes the shortest time to reach to the brain of the user. The rapidness movement of the drug to the brain makes it more addictive and risky to the user’s healthy especially the brain. The addictiveness of heroin usage makes the victim restless when not used thus contributing to a chronic relapsing disease, which is characterized by uncontrolled drug-seeking behavior.
Heroin brain effects
When heroin reaches the brain, it converts back to morphine and binds to opioid receptors in the cells of the brain. The receptors in the brain cells and blood cells especially around those that perceive the pain feel relaxed. The heroin sticks also to opioid receptors in the stem of the brain that controls critical processes such as blood pressure, respiration and arousal.
Frequency overdose of heroin causes breathing suppression. Breathing suppression affects the amount of oxygen the brain receives thus, creating a condition called hypoxia in a victim. Hypoxia leads to long-term effects of neurological and psychological problems such as coma and brain damage.
Individuals who inject heroin to their body system feel a surge of euphoria (rush) with a warm flushing of their skin, dry mouth, anxious mental functioning and heaviness of the extremities in their bodies. Due to the euphoria, the victims usually goes to an alternatively wakeful and drowsy condition (on the nod). Heroin users usually experience the effects except for the surge of euphoria, which is only experienced in users who inject the heroin directly to their bodies. Long-term addiction to opioid affects the brain in many ways according to recent researches. One of the effect is tolerance requirement; this means that more drug is required to achieve the intensity effect. Another effect is the dependence of the drug, there is need for continuous use of the drug to avoid withdrawal effects. They heroin usage affects the brain white matter thus affecting proper decision making abilities, behavior regulation abilities and stressful situation responsiveness CITATION GTu97 \l 1033 (Tunnicliff, 1997).
Other health effects of heroin
Abuse of heroin can cause different health effects including fatal overdose, infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, and spontaneous abortion in pregnant women. Users such as chronic victims develop heart lining infection, collapsed veins, liver and kidney complications, constipation and stomach cramping. The users also develop pulmonary problems such as pneumonia due to breathing difficulties and poor health conditions of the user.
Besides the drug effects alone, street heroin contains contaminated substances or additives which clog blood veins to lungs, brain, liver or kidney leading to a permanent damage to the organs and organs dysfunctional. Frequency heroin users develop physical dependence, a state that the body adopts to heroin in the body. If such a user lacks the supply or drops the use of heroin promptly, the user will experience various withdrawal symptoms that start soon as the last drug administration effects end in the body. The symptoms of withdrawal include restlessness, diarrhea, muscle and bone and born pain, vomiting, insomnia, kicking movement and cold flashes. Users withdrawing also experience craving of the drug, which makes it difficult to stop the usage CITATION JHH04 \l 1033 (Halpern, 2004).
Mothers who are heroin users suffer underweight birth giving due to poor nutritional and lack of prenatal care. These leads to low rate of development in babies and if the mother is a chronic user the baby may be born as a physical dependent on the heroin. These kids suffer from neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS); this is a drug withdrawal in children, which requires hospitalization of the user. Therefore, it is recommended for pregnant heroin mothers to take buprenorphine in order to reduce NAS in babies and reduce their hospital visits.
Treating heroin addiction
Some of the treatments for heroin users include behavioral therapies and medication. These treatment styles help users to gain their lives back and return to normal state.
Medications for heroin users include use of buprenorphine and methadone through binding so cell receptors as weak heroin in their bodies. The medications help addicts and other users reduce the urge of abusing the drug by reducing their craving. The medications such as naltrexone protects opioid receptors and stops the drugs from having any effect on the user. Doctors can chose to administer Naltrexone orally or by injection, these depends on the cooperation of the user towards reforming from heroin using. Doctors use Naloxone drug in users of heroin especially in emergency cases to help save a live CITATION GTu97 \l 1033 (Tunnicliff, 1997).
2 Ecstasy
What is Ecstasy?
Ecstasy or molly or 3, 4-methylenedioy-methamphetamine (MDMA) is a manmade drug that changes an individual’s mood and perception. The drug creates a new surrounding with different object and conditions for the user. The substance is comparable to other stimulants and hallucinogens that produce feelings of high energy, emotional warmth, time perception, and pleasure and distorted sensory to users. The drug was common in dance music culture through the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s. Night clubbers took the drug to feel energized, powerful, and happy and to dance all night long without feeling even the slightest dizziness. The ecstasy effects in users kicks off about 30 minutes after taking the pill and lasts to approximately 6 hours before it states winding down.
Ecstasy is illegal in the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration classifies the drug among other drugs with no medical prove for their use in class Schedule 1. The punishment of the drug possession, producing and delivery can land one to a minimum of four years to a maximum of life imprisonment by the US federal court for any individual who will be in its influence. Victims will face fines of $250,000 to $4 million depending on the amount of ecstasy in possession.
Ecstasy is among the top used drugs by youths in the world today. Report from the United Nation indicates that there are around 9 million ecstasy users in the world. Ecstasy if mixed with alcohol can be fatal thus leading to lose of life. The harm of the drug among its users who are party girls and young men has increased the rate of cases reporting to 911 with incidents of people on ecstasy filling the emergency rooms in hospitals. The number of incidents has gone high by about 1200% due to the "club dance drug" in the nightclubs.
The drug has led to narration of sad stories by friends of the victims who have succumbed due to this drug. For example, a young girl was found dead the next morning after taking ecstasy in a party during the previous night. Another case at a rave party, ...