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Ketamine
Ketamine hydrochloride is a quick-acting anesthetic that is legally used in both humans (as a sedative for minor surgery) and animals (as a tranquilizer). At high doses, it causes intoxication and hallucinations similar to LSD.
Street Names: K, Special K, vitamin K, bump, cat Valium
How It’s Used: Ketamine usually comes in powder that users snort. Users often do it along with other drugs such as Ecstasy (called kitty flipping) or cocaine or sprinkle it on marijuana blunts.
Effects & Dangers:
- Users may become delirious, hallucinate, and lose their sense of time and reality. The trip — also called K-hole — that results from ketamine use lasts up to 2 hours.
- Users may become nauseated or vomit, become delirious, and have problems with thinking or memory.
- At higher doses, ketamine causes movement problems, body numbness, and slowed breathing.
- Overdosing on ketamine can stop you from breathing — and kill you.
Addictiveness: Teens who use it can become psychologically dependent upon it to feel good, deal with life, or handle stress.
LSD
LSD (which stands for lysergic acid diethylamide) is a lab-brewed hallucinogen and mood-changing chemical. LSD is odorless, colorless, and tasteless.
Street Names: acid, blotter, doses, microdots
How It’s Used: LSD is licked or sucked off small squares of blotting paper. Capsules and liquid forms are swallowed. Paper squares containing acid may be decorated with cute cartoon characters or colorful designs.
Effects & Dangers:
- Hallucinations occur within 30 to 90 minutes of dropping acid. People say their senses are intensified and distorted — they see colors or hear sounds with other delusions such as melting walls and a loss of any sense of time. But effects are unpredictable, depending on how much LSD is taken and the user.
- Once you go on an acid trip, you can’t get off until the drug is finished with you — at times up to about 12 hours or even longer!
- Bad trips may cause panic attacks, confusion, depression, and frightening delusions.
- Physical risks include sleeplessness, mangled speech, convulsions, increased heart rate, and coma.
- Users often have flashbacks in which they feel some of the effects of LSD at a later time without having used the drug again.
Addictiveness: Teens who use it can become psychologically dependent upon it to feel good, deal with life, or handle stress.
Marijuana
The most widely used illegal drug in the United States, marijuana resembles green, brown, or gray dried parsley with stems or seeds. A stronger form of marijuana called hashish (hash) looks like brown or black cakes or balls. Marijuana is often called a gateway drug because frequent use can lead to the use of stronger drugs.
Street Names: pot, weed, blunts, chronic, grass, reefer, herb, ganja
How It’s Used: Marijuana is usually smoked — rolled in papers like a cigarette (joints), or in hollowed-out cigars (blunts), pipes (bowls), or water pipes (bongs). Some people mix it into foods or brew it as a tea.
Effects & Dangers:
- Marijuana can affect mood and coordination. Users may experience mood swings that range from stimulated or happy to drowsy or depressed.
- Marijuana also elevates heart rate and blood pressure. Some people get red eyes and feel very sleepy or hungry. The drug can also make some people paranoid or cause them to hallucinate.
- Marijuana is as tough on the lungs as cigarettes — steady smokers suffer coughs, wheezing, and frequent colds.
Addictiveness: Teens who use marijuana can become psychologically dependent upon it to feel good, deal with life, or handle stress. In addition, their bodies may demand more and more marijuana to achieve the same kind of high experienced in the beginning.
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a powerful stimulant.
Street Names: crank, meth, speed, crystal, chalk, fire, glass, crypto, ice
How It’s Used: It can be swallowed, snorted, injected, or smoked.
Effects & Dangers:
- Users feel a euphoric rush from methamphetamine, particularly if it is smoked or shot up. But they can develop tolerance quickly — and will use more meth for longer periods of time, resulting in sleeplessness, paranoia, and hallucinations.
- Users sometimes have intense delusions such as believing that there are insects crawling under their skin.
- Prolonged use may result in violent, aggressive behavior, psychosis, and brain damage.
- The chemicals used to make methamphetamine can also be dangerous to both people and the environment.
Addictiveness: Methamphetamine is highly addictive.
Nicotine
Nicotine is a highly addictive stimulant found in tobacco. This drug is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream when smoked.
How It’s Used: Nicotine is typically smoked in cigarettes or cigars. Some people put a pinch of tobacco (called chewing or smokeless tobacco) into their mouths and absorb nicotine through the lining of their mouths.
Effects & Dangers:
- Physical effects include rapid heartbeat, increased blood pressure, shortness of breath, and a greater likelihood of colds and flu.
- Nicotine users have an increased risk for lung and heart disease and stroke. Smokers also have bad breath and yellowed teeth. Chewing tobacco users may suffer from cancers of the mouth and neck.
- Withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, anger, restlessness, and insomnia.
Addictiveness: Nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine, which makes it extremely difficult to quit. Those who start smoking before the age of 21 have the hardest time breaking the habit.
Rohypnol
Rohypnol (pronounced: ro-hip-nol) is a low-cost, increasingly popular drug. Because it often comes in presealed bubble packs, many teens think that the drug is safe.
Street Names: roofies, roach, forget-me pill, date rape drug
How It’s Used: This drug is swallowed, sometimes with alcohol or other drugs.
Effects & Dangers:
- Rohypnol is a prescription antianxiety medication that is 10 times more powerful than Valium.
- It can cause the blood pressure to drop, as well as cause memory loss, drowsiness, dizziness, and an upset stomach.
- Though it’s part of the depressant family of drugs, it causes some people to be overly excited or aggressive.
- Rohypnol has received a lot of attention because of its association with date rape. Many teen girls and women report having been raped after having rohypnol slipped into their drinks. The drug also causes “anterograde amnesia.” This means it’s hard to remember what happened while on the drug, like a blackout. Because of this it can be hard to give important details if a young woman wants to report the rape.
Addictiveness: Users can become physically addicted to rohypnol, so it can cause extreme withdrawal symptoms when users stop.
source: http://kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/drugs/know_about_drugs.html#