Prescription Drug Abuse? Xanax Abuse Oxycontin Addiction Prescription Drugs
Prescription Drug Abuse
Prescription Drug Abuse: Xanax Abuse, Oxycontin Abuse, Percocet Abuse
Prescription Drug Abuse-What Are Depressants?
Depressants are a group of drugs that depress the central nervous system. Taken as prescribed, depressants often help relieve anxiety, tension, insomnia, muscle spasms, and irritability. When abused, like many other drugs, they are addictive. The most common depressants are alcohol, barbiturates, tranquilizers, rohypnol, placidly, xanax and valium. The most common depressant is alcohol. People use alcohol to relax, to ease tension, and to help them forget their problems. It's also legal to all adults. This probably explains why alcohol is the most commonly abused of all drugs.
Prescription Drugs- What Are The Effects Of Depressants?
Doctors to relieve anxiety or treat insomnia prescribe barbiturates, sedatives, and tranquilizers. Popularly known as downers, these drugs depress the activity of the brain and can be helpful when taken under medical supervision. In excessive amounts their effects are similar to alcohol intoxication, yet they can be extremely dangerous. An overdose of depressants causes slurred speech, impaired coordination, and irregular breathing. A heavy overdose can result in muscle spasms, vomiting, convulsions, unconsciousness, and death. Continued use may lead to dependence and increased tolerance. Users need larger and larger doses to get the same effect, which brings them, continually closer to the fatal dose. Overdose is more likely to occur when users mix depressants with alcohol. Users become disoriented, confused, and can't remember how much they took. The list of people who have died from depressants and alcohol is long. A few of the better known are Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Janis Joplin.
What Are Barbiturates?
More than 2,500 varieties of barbiturates exist. Doctors prescribe barbiturates to treat anxiety, agitation, and insomnia, and give them to patients before surgery to make them drowsy. Some barbiturates help control medical conditions such as high blood pressure, epilepsy, and ulcers. However, barbiturates are also sold in the illegal drug market with street names like "downers" and "goof balls." People under the influence of barbiturates behave as if they are drunk on alcohol. They lose their inhibitions and show marked changes in their behavior. In many individuals, side effects include nausea, nervousness, rash, and diarrhea. People on barbiturates may have difficulty thinking and making decisions; they may be emotionally unstable, lack coordination, be disoriented, and have slurred speech.
What Are Tranquilizers? Tranquilizers are drugs that calm people with paranoia or nervous disorders. As an addictive drug, however, no substance other than alcohol has had a greater negative effect on the public. Until the 1940s, people relied on alcohol to reduce anxiety and to relax. Beginning in 1951, they turned to tranquilizers. Milton, an early tranquilizer, was first used as a muscle relaxer, then as a tension reliever. In 1960, a new tranquilizer came on the market benzodiazepine. Today Benzodiazepine is sold under the names Xanax, Adivan, Klonopine, Valium and Librium. "Benzo's" quickly became the primary tranquilizer of choice.
What Is Chloral Hydrate?
Chloral Hydrate, or "knock out drops," is a drug slipped into a drink to make a person unconscious. Combining chloral hydrate and alcohol creates what is known as a "Mickey Finn." Chloral hydrate takes effect in about 30 minutes. It irritates the stomach lining, especially if taken repeatedly. Long-term use of large doses of the drug causes physical dependence.
What Is Rohypnol?
Primarily used by partygoers and nightclub attendees, Rohypnol, or "Roofie," "Circles," "Rope," "Forget Pill," and "R-Z," is sometimes slipped into a drink to make a person unconscious much like the fabled "Mickey Finn." Rohypnol is smuggled into the United States from other countries, where it is used to treat insomnia, anxiety, convulsions and muscle tension. It can cause drowsiness, dizziness, loss of coordination, memory loss and an upset stomach. At higher doses it causes coma, respiratory depression and death.
What Is Placidyl and Quaalude?
Placidyl is a short-term sedative hypnotic drug. It causes side effects such as facial numbness, blurred vision, nausea, dizziness, gastric problems, and skin rashes. Combined with alcohol, Placidyl can kill. Quaalude or methaqualone, is a barbiturate-like, sedative-hypnotic drug. Quaalude was first introduced as an anti-malaria drug in the 1950s. After years of abuse, Quaalude distribution and prescriptions became strictly controlled. Because of adverse publicity, methaqualone has not been manufactured in the United States since 1985, though large amounts are still illegally imported. Severe overdoses cause delirium, convulsions and seizures.
Is It Dangerous To Mix Depressants With Other Drugs?
Drug abuse is a vicious cycle. Users often take drugs to counter the effect of other drugs they are taking. But, taken in combination with alcohol or other drugs, depressants can kill. Because of their anti-depressant effects, cocaine users take depressants to reduce the depression at the end of a binge. Drug users commonly are cross-addicted. Alcoholics use depressants to reduce the withdrawal from alcohol. Alcoholics also use depressants to become intoxicated, without the associated odor of alcohol. Mixing depressants and alcohol can depress the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, often with deadly consequences. Because knowledge of this dangerous drug interaction is common, many people attempt suicide by taking high doses of depressants with alcohol. Prescription drug abuse, such as Xanax or Oxycontin abuse, can be deadly.
