Phencyclidine is also known as PCP. PCP is also known as angel dust informally. Formerly PCP used as an anesthetic agent. But use of it was discontinued on patients because of agitated, irrational and delusional while recovering from its anesthetic effects. Use of PCP discontinued in 1965. In 1960s, PCP was introduced first time as a street drug

Street Names of PCP

• Angel
• Angel Dust
• Boat
• Dummy Dust
• Love Boat
• Peace
• Supergrass
• Zombie

It is a “dissociative drug”.

How Abused

PCP is a white crystalline powder (picture below). It is readily soluble in alcohol and water. It’s like distinctive bitter chemical taste. It is easy to mix with dyes. Usually PCP sold in illegal drug market in a variety of capsule, tablet and colored powder forms. Those are normally snorted, orally ingested or smoked. PCP is often applied to a leafy material like mint, parsley, marijuana or oregano for smoking.

Approximately the effect can last for 4 to 6 hours, depending upon how much and what route PCP is taken.

Effect on Brain

Gained reactions as a drug and was not good worth the risk. Some abusers continue to use for feelings of strength, power, and invulnerability and numbing effect on the mind.

Psychological effects  

• Such as hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking, paranoia, and a sensation of distance form one’s environment.
• Abusers of PCP who have taking it for long periods, they are having problems like memory loss, depression, difficulties with speech and thinking, and most common is weight loss. Even abusers can suffer these problems up to one year after stopping taking PCP.
• If abusers take PCP repeatedly, then that can lead to craving and PCP seeking behavior.

Effects on health

Taking PCP low doses to moderate doses can cause many physiological effects. Common effects are:

• A slight increase in breathing rate
• Pronounced rise in blood pressure and pulse rate
• Breathing becomes shallow
• Flushing and profuse sweating
• Generalized numbness of extremities
• Loss of muscular coordination

Taking high doses

• Blood pressure drops
• Pulse rate drops
• Respiration drops

High doses also can cause seizures, coma and death.

Sometime is may accompanied by nausea, blurred vision, vomiting, flicking up and down of the eyes, loss of balance, dizziness and drooling.

Danger to Others

Abusers may become suicidal or violent while they are intoxicated. So, they are dangerous for others and to themselves as well.

Treatment
This treatment is usually supportive. Type of treatment is supportive provision of a quiet room with little sensory stimulation. Sometime benzodiazepines are used to control extreme agitation or seizures.

LSD

LSD discovered in 1938. It manufactured from lysergic acid. Lysergic acid is found in ergot, a fungus which grows on rye and other grains.

LSD is mood-changing chemical.

Street Names of LSD

• Acid
• Blotter
• Blooter Acid
• Dots
• Microdot
• Pane
• Paper Acid
• Sugar
• Sugar Cubes
• Trip
• Window Glass
• Window Pane
• Zen

How abused

LSD is usually taken orally. It is sold in tablets, capsules, and occasionally liquid form. LSD is often added to absorbent paper. Then, the paper divided into decorated pieces each equivalent to one dose. Experiences referred to as “trips”. Normally it ends after twelve hours.

Affect on Brain

Under the influence of LSD, user’s sensations and feelings changes much more dramatically than physical signs. Sometime users feel several different emotions at once or move rapidly from one emotion to another. Drug produces delusions and visual hallucinations if it taken in large enough doses. Users may face wired experiences. These wired experiences are like giving the user the feeling of hearing colors and seeing sounds. Sometime these problems cause frightening and panic. Some LSD users face different experience. For example, terrifying thoughts and feelings of despair, fear of losing control, or fear of insanity and death while taking LSD.

LSD users experience flashbacks. These flashbacks occur suddenly without any warning. Flashbacks might occur within a few days or more than a year after LSD use. In some cases, the flashbacks can keep coming in mind continuously and cause significant distress or impairment in social or occupational functioning. This condition known as hallucinogen induced persisting perceptual disorder (HPPD).

After taking LSD for a while, most of users voluntarily decrease or stop its over time. It is not considered an addictive drug because it does not produce compulsive drug seeking behavior.

Other Effects

There are many other effects on health. LSD causes dilated pupils. It can raise body temperature, increase heart rate, blood pressure. LSD can cause profuse sweating, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, dry mouth and even tremors.

Treatment
This treatment is usually supportive. Type of treatment is supportive provision of a quiet room with little sensory stimulation. Sometime benzodiazepines are used to control extreme agitation or seizures.

How abused
Hallucinogens are used use into ritualistic or spiritual traditions. The effects of hallucinogens are highly variable and also unreliable. Hallucinogens produce different effects in different people at different times. Use hallucinogens can be very dangerous because of their unpredictable nature.

Brain and Hallucinogens
Under influence of hallucinogens, people see many things are not real. For example, they see images, hear sounds, and sometime feel sensations. Some hallucinogens also produce rapid, intense emotional swings. These drugs cause their effect by initially disrupting the interaction of nerve cells and the neurotransmitter serotonin. Hallucinogens contain drugs are distribute throughout the brain and spinal code. The serotonin system is involved in the control of users behavioral, perceptual, and regulatory system. It also controls mood, hunger, body temperature, sexual behavior, muscle control, and sensory perception.
PCP acts differently than others. Like glutamate receptor in the brain that plays important role for the perception of pain, responses to the environment, and learning and memory.

Because of no proper controlled research studies on the specific effects of these drugs on human brain. Some studies and case reports have been showed some effects associated with the use of hallucinogens.

Treatment
This treatment is usually supportive. Type of treatment is supportive provision of a quiet room with little sensory stimulation. Sometime benzodiazepines are used to control extreme agitation or seizures.

Drug abuse and addiction are a major burden to society. Estimates of the total overall costs of substance abuse in the United States—including health- and crime-related costs as well as losses in productivity—exceed half a trillion dollars annually. This includes approximately $181 billion for illicit drugs,¹ $168 billion for tobacco,² and $185 billion for alcohol.³ Staggering as these numbers are, however, they do not fully describe the breadth of deleterious public health—and safety—implications, which include family disintegration, loss of employment, failure in school, domestic violence, child abuse, and other crimes.

What is drug addiction?

Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them. Drug addiction is a brain disease because the abuse of drugs leads to changes in the structure and function of the brain. Although it is true that for most people the initial decision to take drugs is voluntary, over time the changes in the brain caused by repeated drug abuse can affect a person’s self control and ability to make sound decisions, and at the same time send intense impulses to take drugs.

It is because of these changes in the brain that it is so challenging for a person who is addicted to stop abusing drugs. Fortunately, there are treatments that help people to counteract addiction’s powerful disruptive effects and regain control. Research shows that combining addiction treatment medications, if available, with behavioral therapy is the best way to ensure success for most patients. Treatment approaches that are tailored to each patient’s drug abuse patterns and any co-occurring medical, psychiatric, and social problems can lead to sustained recovery and a life without drug abuse.

Similar to other chronic, relapsing diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, or heart disease, drug addiction can be managed successfully. And, as with other chronic diseases, it is not uncommon for a person to relapse and begin abusing drugs again. Relapse, however, does not signal failure—rather, it indicates that treatment should be reinstated, adjusted, or that alternate treatment is needed to help the individual regain control and recover.

What happens to your brain when you take drugs?

Drugs are chemicals that tap into the brain’s communication system and disrupt the way nerve cells normally send, receive, and process information. There are at least two ways that drugs are able to do this: (1) by imitating the brain’s natural chemical messengers, and/or (2) by overstimulating the “reward circuit” of the brain.

Some drugs, such as marijuana and heroin, have a similar structure to chemical messengers, called neurotransmitters, which are naturally produced by the brain. Because of this similarity, these drugs are able to “fool” the brain’s receptors and activate nerve cells to send abnormal messages.

Other drugs, such as cocaine or methamphetamine, can cause the nerve cells to release abnormally large amounts of natural neurotransmitters, or prevent the normal recycling of these brain chemicals, which is needed to shut off the signal between neurons. This disruption produces a greatly amplified message that ultimately disrupts normal communication patterns.

Nearly all drugs, directly or indirectly, target the brain’s reward system by flooding the circuit with dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter present in regions of the brain that control movement, emotion, motivation, and feelings of pleasure. The overstimulation of this system, which normally responds to natural behaviors that are linked to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc.), produces euphoric effects in response to the drugs. This reaction sets in motion a pattern that “teaches” people to repeat the behavior of abusing drugs.

As a person continues to abuse drugs, the brain adapts to the overwhelming surges in dopamine by producing less dopamine or by reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the reward circuit. As a result, dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit is lessened, reducing the abuser’s ability to enjoy the drugs and the things that previously brought pleasure. This decrease compels those addicted to drugs to keep abusing drugs in order to attempt to bring their dopamine function back to normal. And, they may now require larger amounts of the drug than they first did to achieve the dopamine high—an effect known as tolerance.

Long-term abuse causes changes in other brain chemical systems and circuits as well. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that influences the reward circuit and the ability to learn. When the optimal concentration of glutamate is altered by drug abuse, the brain attempts to compensate, which can impair cognitive function. Drugs of abuse facilitate nonconscious (conditioned) learning, which leads the user to experience uncontrollable cravings when they see a place or person they associate with the drug experience, even when the drug itself is not available. Brain imaging studies of drug-addicted individuals show changes in areas of the brain that are critical to judgment, decisionmaking, learning and memory, and behavior control. Together, these changes can drive an abuser to seek out and take drugs compulsively despite adverse consequences—in other words, to become addicted to drugs.

Why do some people become addicted, while others do not?

No single factor can predict whether or not a person will become addicted to drugs. Risk for addiction is influenced by a person’s biology, social environment, and age or stage of development. The more risk factors an individual has, the greater the chance that taking drugs can lead to addiction. For example:

• Biology. The genes that people are born with––in combination with environmental influences––account for about half of their addiction vulnerability. Additionally, gender, ethnicity, and the presence of other mental disorders may influence risk for drug abuse and addiction.
• Environment. A person’s environment includes many different influences––from family and friends to socioeconomic status and quality of life in general. Factors such as peer pressure, physical and sexual abuse, stress, and parental involvement can greatly influence the course of drug abuse and addiction in a person’s life.
• Development. Genetic and environmental factors interact with critical developmental stages in a person’s life to affect addiction vulnerability, and adolescents experience a double challenge. Although taking drugs at any age can lead to addiction, the earlier that drug use begins, the more likely it is to progress to more serious abuse. And because adolescents’ brains are still developing in the areas that govern decisionmaking, judgment, and self-control, they are especially prone to risk-taking behaviors, including trying drugs of abuse.

Prevention is the Key

Drug addiction is a preventable disease. Results from NIDA-funded research have shown that prevention programs that involve families, schools, communities, and the media are effective in reducing drug abuse. Although many events and cultural factors affect drug abuse trends, when youths perceive drug abuse as harmful, they reduce their drug taking. It is necessary, therefore, to help youth and the general public to understand the risks of drug abuse, and for teachers, parents, and healthcare professionals to keep sending the message that drug addiction can be prevented if a person never abuses drugs.

1 Office of National Drug Control Policy. The Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in the United States: 1992-2002. Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President (Publication No. 207303), 2004.

2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Annual Smoking–Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Productivity Losses — United States, 1997–2001. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 54(25):625–628, July 1, 2005.

3 Harwood, H. Updating Estimates of the Economic Costs of Alcohol Abuse in the United States: Estimates, Update Methods, and Data Report. Prepared by the Lewin Group for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2000.