YOUNG PEOPLE AND DRUGS

Most people have visited a doctor when they were ill and have been given drugs such as antibiotics to make them well. These drugs contain chemicals which change the way the body works, and the drug attacks whatever is causing the disease, or giving pain. Some drugs can also change the way we feel and the way we behave, and in certain cases doctors prescribe these mood-altering drugs, for example if a patient is suffering from depression. When patients take these drugs they are using them for the right purpose.

Drug abuse means using any drug for the wrong purpose, so that it harms your body or your mind. Drug abuse can damage your health, your relationships and your ability to work or study. Some people develop a craving for a drug, and keep on taking it though it is having a bad effect upon their lives. This is called dependence or addiction. If a person suddenly stops taking the drug, there can be withdrawn effects upon the body, such as getting a headache when giving up drinking coffee, or getting a 'hangover' after drinking alcohol. More seriously, the withdrawal effects from taking really dangerous drugs, such as heroin, may be death.

The mood-altering chemicals can harm your brain, heart, liver, nervous system, eyes and other parts of the body, depending on the chemical.

Glue sniffing, for example, may destroy the delicate membrane inside the nose. An overdose of a mood-altering chemical such as alcohol or heroin can result in death, and even glue sniffing has been known to kill.

However, the mood-altering chemicals are the only danger in drug abuse. Many abusers live a very unhealthy lifestyle. They may eat badly and suffer from malnutrition. They may not be able to take exercise; they may not be interested in work, or study. Often they neglect family and friends, or steal from them to pay for their habit. Many abusers have serious or even fatal accidents when they are 'high'.

Some drug abusers use a needle and syringe to inject the drug into their veins. They are in great danger of getting HIV if they share a needle with an infected person. This is because HIV is passed from people to people through body fluids. Blood is a fluid.

Infected blood can be passed on in the needle and syringe from one person to another.