Drugs

Drugs, whether prescribed by doctors for health reasons or sold on the street for recreational purposes, are substances that alter the way your body functions.

Facts and Effects

Tobacco

Smoking cigarettes causes many health risks including heart attacks. Tobacco, when smoked acts as a stimulant on the body, and a feeling of relaxation follows about 1/2 an hour later.

But the tobacco you find in cigarettes isn't just tobacco; it's supplemented with over 4,000 chemicals, 43 of which are known to cause cancer. That means there's more junk in one puff than there is behind the bike shed.

Limited use, that is, smoking just a few cigarettes a week, can give you bad breath, dry skin, and smelly clothes. It can also lower your immune system, and you know what that means: more coughs and colds.

Prolonged smoking (smoking more cigarettes more often) does worse than just give you a stink mouth. Eventually every part of your body ends up polluted by the toxins in cigarettes.

You know what else? This stuff's addictive and expensive. A normal pack of smokes is around $10.00. Think of what else you can buy with that cash. Instead of three packs of Lights, you could grab a new CD. Your choice: sweet tunes or sour tokes.

Alcohol

Alcohol is a sedative-depressant. Moderate amounts can relax you, make you feel more sociable-which is why many people choose to drink and enjoy drinking responsibly. But too much alcohol can drag you down and stop you thinking straight. You may throw up, lose control, and not be able to speak properly.

So what does alcohol do? We know that it affects self-control, making some people feel out of it after one or two drinks.

Here are some effects alcohol has on your body:

  • Can make you blackout and forget what happened the night before,
  • can cause alcohol poisoning-when parts of your brain literally shut down, this can kill you.
  • Also, drinking can lead to risky behaviors, such as driving when you shouldn't, or having unprotected sex.

Many people drink because they say it "solves their problems," but abusing alcohol actually causes more problems than it solves. Loss of coordination, poor judgment, slowed reflexes; distorted vision, memory lapses, and even blackouts are only some of alcohol's adverse affects. Drinking too much also  makes interacting with people difficult, so work and family start to seem less important than they really are.

If you are drunk:

  • Under 17 the police can take you home or if you want to, to a social welfare home.
  • 17 or over the police can take you home.
  • At any age if you can't or won't tell the police where you live, they can take you to a detox centre or temporary shelter. If no one can take you, the police can hold you for up to 12 hours until you're capable of looking after yourself.

Cannabis

Cannabis comes in a number of forms including marijuana (dried leaves or flowers), hashish or hashish oil. Any way you find it, the active ingredient is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The effects of cannabis can vary depending on previous experience, quantity and strength of the cannabis, and your mood at the time.

Cannibas in small doses can be relaxing and create a feeling of social confidence, cannibas like alcohol, is a depressant, but it can also make it difficult to concentrate, increase your appetite (the munchies), impair balance and co-ordination, and make your eyes bloodshot.

In larger doses cannabis can affect your sense of time, make you feel anxious, and distort your perception of reality.

Cannabis is illegal in New Zealand. You get busted with it, and you've just earned yourself a criminal record.