Monday, September 17, 2012

Drug Mechanisms and the harm they cause


The topic that was an eye opener to me was how drug mechanisms work. When you are a teenager and think that you know it all is when we (teenagers) commit many mistakes that lead up to problems when we are grownups. We do not look at the consequences that it may have if we snort that bump of cocaine or if we take a hit of that joint and taking it to the extreme and shooting up heroin. If we knew that by using cocaine which is a stimulant drug and that it increases excitement and activity while it elevates your mood and then decreasing fatigue. And that it stimulates dopamine synapses in the nucleus accumbens which is located at the base of the forebrain and is a collection of neurons that are thought to play many roles in our brain such as pleasure addiction and fear and by increasing the presence of the dopamine in the presynaptic terminal it decreasing the reuptake and prolonging the effects of released dopamine. The excess dopamine in the synapse washes away and never comes back you can't replace it. Marijuana on the other hand is a depressant and that it may cause memory loss to those who are new or heavy users. Even though marijuana has been legalized to medical purposes teenagers use it to get high not knowing the risks they are taking and the consequences it will bring them in the future.

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