Alice Minium

If you’re a kid in America and you’ve been to any kind of school, you definitely know what DARE stands for.  You participated in red ribbon week in elementary school, and your mom bought you the t-shirt emblazoned with the bold reminder to Just Say No.  You saw that Above the Influence commercial when the grungy kids smoking cigarettes pressured the anxious-looking girl to take one of their mysterious pills.  While most people you’ve encountered probably aren’t really like those kids, we’ve all known somebody.  Everybody’s told us different things.

Don’t ever believe what somebody says just because you heard somebody say it.  You’ll end up dead, or worse, ignorant.

Many of us have friends who’ve done drugs, and we know what the effects look like firsthand.  Some of us have already experimented with drugs ourselves.  We know what it looks like to be high, and some of us know how it feels.  But how many of us know why drugs make us feel the way they do?  Why do they impair some of our abilities but improve other ones?  Why do we feel different without them?  Why do some drugs excite you with energy and others get you mellow and low?  What is it that makes them dangerous?  What is this really doing to my brain?

Throughout our entire young adulthoods, we have been assaulted left and right with violently clashing messages on what we should do about drugs.  Nobody can make that decision for you, although there will be many people who will try.  Whatever your decision may be, be aware of the changes you’re making and the effects you will experience.  Be the master of your own mind.  Understand what you’re doing to your brain.

Since most of us don’t spend too much time experimenting with LSD, here is a very brief overview of how some basic drugs are working in your brain.  Some of these drugs are considered socially acceptable, but they are drugs nonetheless. It’s funny how rarely we think about the fact that we’re constantly drugging our brains, and it’s funnier still how little we seem to care.  Maybe the time has come for that to change.

Marijuana (THC)

Fact: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as of 2008, 43% of American high school seniors had smoked marijuana in their lifetime.

Fact: According to Paul Hager, Chair of the ICLU Drug Task Force, the ratio of the amount of cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (or high) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000.

Fact: According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 1995, 165,000 people entering drug treatment programs reported themselves to be addicted to marijuana.

What it feels like: Once in your bloodstream, thc typically reaches the brain within seconds and begins to go to work.  Marijuana users often describe the experience of smoking marijuana as initially relaxing and mellowing, creating a feeling of haziness and light-headedness.  The user’s eyes may dilate, causing colors to appear more intense, and other senses may be enhanced.  Sometimes, feelings of paranoia and panic may follow.

How it works: To understand how marijuana affects the brain, you need to know about the parts of the brain that are affected by thc.  Here are the basics: neurons are the cells that process information in the brain.  Chemicals called neurotransmitters allow neurons to communicate with each other.  Neurotransmitters fill the gap, or synapse, between two neurons and bind to protein receptors, which enable various functions and allow the brain and body to be turned on and off.  Some neurons have thousands of receptors that are specific to particular neurotransmitters.  Foreign chemicals, like thc, can mimic or block actions of neurotransmitters and interfere with normal functions.  In your brain, there are groups of cannabinoid receptors concentrated in several different places.  These cannabinoid receptors have an effect on several mental and physical activities, including: short-term memory, coordination, learning, and problem solving.  Cannabinoid receptors are activated by a neurotransmitter called anandamide.  Anandamide belongs to a group of chemicals called cannabinoids.  thc is also a cannabinoid chemical.  thc mimics the actions of anandamide, meaning that thc binds with cannabinoid receptors and activates neurons, which causes adverse effects on the mind and body.  High concentrations of cannabinoid receptors exist in the hippocampus, cerebellum, and basal ganglia.  The hippocampus is located within the temporal lobe and is important for short-term memory.  When the thc binds with the cannabinoid receptors inside the hippocampus, it interferes with the recollection of recent events.  thc also affects coordination, which is controlled by the cerebellum.  The basal ganglia controls unconscious muscle movements, which is another reason why motor coordination is impaired when under the influence of marijuana.

Nicotine

Fact: According to a 2002 report by the World Health Organization, about one in five young teenagers (ages 13 to 15) worldwide are smokers, and evidence shows that about 50% of adolescent smokers will go on to smoke for 15 or 20 more years.

Fact: According to a 2002 report by the World Health Organization, every eight seconds someone dies from a smoking-related death, and for every person who dies from smoking, twenty more will suffer a smoking-related illness.

Fact: According to a 2001 report by the Centers for Disease Control, seventy percent of addicted smokers want to quit.  Less than seven percent ever actually do.

What it feels like: Nicotine has a calming effect by changing the activeness of brain areas, which slow down the manifestation of negative emotions.  Smokers often experience an increase in energy, concentration, and satisfaction because of the endorphins being released.

How it works: Nicotine affects the brain by mimicking neurotransmitters.  Each neurotransmitter is specifically designed to fit with a receptor on another nerve cell.  Once the neurotransmitter locks into the receptor site, it activates the nerve cell and continues the message to the next cell.  Nicotine mainly mimics two neurotransmitters called acetylcholine and dopamine.  Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter responsible for a variety of bodily operations including breathing, heart rate, muscle movement, and cognition.  Nicotine increases the activity of these receptor sites, which is why many smokers feel an increase of energy or an increase in ability to concentrate directly after smoking a cigarette.  Nicotine can also lock into dopamine receptor sites.  Dopamine is the neurotransmitter most known for feeling pleasure.  It is commonly referred to as the “reward pathway” of the brain.  Dopamine is designed to release a good feeling every time you do something that benefits the body such as eating or exercising.  This reinforces the mind to want to repeat the action at a later time.  The nicotine in tobacco products creates this same pleasurable feeling, reinforcing the need to continue smoking or using other tobacco products.  Nicotine can also trigger the brain to release endorphins, proteins that act as natural pain medicine for the body.  The more nicotine that enters the blood stream, the greater potential for endorphins to be released.

Alcohol

Fact: According to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), by the time students are in high school, 80% have used alcohol and 62% have been drunk.

Fact: According to the Marin Institute, 95% of alcoholics die from their disease and die approximately 26 years earlier than their normal life expectancy.

Fact: According to the Shaffer Library of Drug Policy, 10% of casual drinkers become alcoholics.

What it feels like: Depending on one’s BAC (Blood Alcohol Content), intoxication can cause feelings of euphoria, increased self-confidence, inhibited judgment, increased sociability, sedation, delayed reactions, impaired memory, blurred vision, and impaired fine muscle coordination.

How it works: Alcohol affects the brain’s neurons in several ways.  It alters their membranes, as well as their ion channels, enzymes, and receptors.  Alcohol also binds directly to the receptors for acetylcholine, serotonin, GABA (an amino acid in the brain that suppresses the action of nerve cells, relaxing the muscles in the body and calming emotions), and the NMDA receptors for glutamate (a receptor usually involved in learning and memory).  GABA’s effect is to reduce neural activity by allowing chloride ions to enter the post-synaptic neuron.  These ions have a negative electrical charge, which helps to make the neuron less excitable.  This physiological effect is amplified when alcohol binds to the GABA receptor, thus explaining the sedative effect.  Alcohol also helps to increase the release of dopamine by a process that is still poorly understood but seems to involve curtailing the activity of the enzyme that breaks dopamine down.

Caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine)

Fact: According to the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, 90% of Americans consume caffeine every day.  It is the world’s most used psychoactive drug.

Fact: The American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System reported more than 4,000 instances of caffeine toxicity in 2007.

Fact: The World Health Organization considers caffeine addiction a substance dependency and psychologically-impairing condition.  It is very weak in its addictive properties.

What it feels like: Initially you become more alert, and your brain may work better and faster.  But by the time you start that second cup, you may be anxious and irritable, which is not conducive to clear thinking.

How it works: Caffeine is a stimulant, meaning it accelerates physiological activity — in this case, speeding up the action of your brain and making you more alert.  It does this by binding to adenosine receptors in the brain.  Normally the chemical adenosine (a neurotransmitter involved in sleep initiation) binds to these, causing drowsiness by slowing down nerve cell activity.  The caffeine doesn’t have this effect but does get in the way of the adenosine.  Because the caffeine is blocking the adenosine receptors, your neurons become more active than they otherwise would be.  That is why it seems to be good for the brain.  Then your pituitary gland responds to all the activity as though it were an emergency by releasing hormones that tell the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline.  This is what is sometimes known as the “fight or flight” hormone (and is also called epinephrine), giving you the energy that you associate with caffeine.