User Affects Print E-mail

What Meth does to you:

Swallowed or snorted (also called bumping), methamphetamines give the user an intense high. Injections create a quick but strong intense high, called a rush or a flash.
Methamphetamines, like regular amphetamines, also take away appetite. It is a dangerous strategy sometimes used by people trying to lose weight quickly.

Methamphetamines give someone the ability to stay awake and do continuous activity with less need for sleep. They pump up a person's heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. They also cause sweating, headaches, blurred vision, dry mouth, hot flashes, and dizziness.

People who are abusing methamphetamines feel high and full of energy. They think the drug will allow their bodies to keep going and going. But methamphetamines are very damaging to the body and brain, especially with repeated use. Long-term use of methamphetamines can cause brain damage that causes problems with memory and body movement.

When used in larger doses, methamphetamines can cause dangerously high body temperature, confusion, convulsions (uncontrollable jerking body movements), and even death.

 

Signs of meth use:

 

  • Sores / Staph infections
  • Weight loss
  • Constant anxiety (even when not using)

                                                    - Courtesy of SCMP Youth Participants

  • Inability to sleep: staying up all night or for days on end
  • Increased sensitivity to noise
  • Nervous physical activity, like scratchgin or picking at the skin
  • Irritability, dizziness, or ocnfusion
  • False sense of confidence or power
  • Tremors, possibly even convulsions
  • Increased heart rate, blood pressure
  • Paraphernalia, such as razor blades, mirrors, straws, syringes, heating spooons, or surgical tubing
  • New set of (undesirable) friends
  • Sudden and drastic weight loss
  • Increase in time spent away from home
  • Flu like smptoms
 

What are the health risks of using meth?

An overdose of MA may result in hyperthermia and convulsions, and death if untreated. The risk of overdose is highest when the drug is injected. Because MA is a highly addictive substance with a high potential for abuse, long term use of MA can easily lead to addiction. With chronic use, tolerance develops to the pleasurable effects of the drug and the user tries to maintain the high by taking higher doses, using more frequently or changing the route of administration. Often abusers neglect to eat or sleep while binging on the drug, often using as much as one gram every 2-3 hours over several days until the user runs out of drug.

MA use is associated with episodes of violent behaviour, paranoia, anxiety, confusion and insomnia. Long term use has also been associated with psychotic behaviour including paranoia, auditory hallucinations, mood disturbances and delusions (such as 'formication', or the feeling of insects crawling on the skin). The paranoia may result in homicidal or suicidal thoughts. Psychotic symptoms may persist for months after the drug is discontinued.

MA can also cause a variety of medical complications, including weight loss and cardiovascular problems: increased heart rate, arrhythmia, hypertension, and irreversible stroke-producing damage to small blood vessels in the brain.

Injection users who share injection equipment are also at increased risk of acquiring and transmitting blood borne viruses such as HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. Chronic MA use may also result in skin abscesses in injection users.

How does it work in the body?

MA acts by releasing very high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine into areas of the brain that regulate mood and body movements. Both the rush and the high produced by MA are believed to be caused by the release of dopamine into areas of the brain that regulate feelings of pleasure. Cocaine is another example of a stimulant. Although MA and cocaine share many similarities, some important differences exist. At the nerve cell level, both cocaine and MA cause an accumulation of the neurotransmitter dopamine which appears to be responsible for the stimulation and euphoria experienced by users. However, unlike MA, cocaine is quickly removed and almost completely eliminated from the body (50% of the drug is removed from the body in 1 hour). MA has a much longer duration of action and a greater percentage of the drug remains unchanged in the body (50% of the drug is removed from the body in 12 hours), which means that MA remains in the brain longer and prolongs the stimulant effects. To illustrate, smoking MA produces a high that can last from 8-24 hours while smoking cocaine produces a high that lasts 20-30min.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 23 November 2008 )
 
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